Be aware of the risk that you are taking when using AWS EC2 I3 instance type
The AWS I3 storage optimized instance family has a potential problem if you choose to use it for storing your data.
2021-09-14
8,868 reads
Steve Rezhener
- Website: https://www.datasteve.com
Identify Profiles Actually In-use to Make Database Mail Migration Efficient
Introduction According to Microsoft, Database Mail is an enterprise solution for sending e-mail messages from the SQL Server Database Engine. Using Database Mail, your database applications can send e-mail messages to users. The messages can contain query results and can also include files from any resource on your network. This article is going to discuss […]
2021-04-27
1,247 reads
Hacking the DTSX (SSIS XML file) to Change Defaults
Introduction According to Microsoft, DTSX is an XML-based file format that stores the instructions for the processing of a data flow from its points of origin to its points of destination, including transformations and optional processing steps between the origin and destination points. In a nutshell, when you are creating your SSIS package, the SQL […]
2021-03-25
4,635 reads
Syncing your SQL Server database backups to an AWS S3 bucket
Introduction "Sometimes" just having all the database backups in one place is not enough. In fact, most of the time, putting all the eggs in one basket is a bad idea. You want to have some piece of mind that during the time of crisis, all your database backups are restorable. This is probably why […]
2021-02-11
6,612 reads
The case for SQL Server Agent 2.0
SQL Server Agent is heavily used by many organizations, but it hasn't changed much in years. This article speculates on some new features that might improve the scheduler.
2020-12-21
3,365 reads
Boost performance of your SQL Server tables with a TURBO button
Introduction Performance, performance, performance. While performance in SQL Server can be achieved with code improvement and proper infrastructure maintenance, both tasks require an effort. Code reviews and deep index analysis would take time, but sometimes the obvious is right in front of you. Let's talk about HEAP tables, aka tables with no clustered indexes that […]
2020-12-08
7,236 reads
Getting Informative SQL Agent Notifications from Failed SSIS Packages
Getting informative error messages when something goes wrong with an SSIS package is critical, especially if you are not in front of your computer.
2020-11-25
7,165 reads
Ensure that SSRS is Working while Using Availability Groups
This article explains how to get around one of the issues when the SSRS databases are part of an Availability Group.
2020-11-17
5,656 reads
Block user objects from being created in a master database
Introduction The Master database. Just in case that you are not familiar with this database, the Master database is used in SQL Server to store all the system information, instance-level settings, logon information, database file locations, etc. SQL Server can't run without access to a fully functional master database. It's highly recommended not to use […]
2020-11-10
4,074 reads
2020-10-22
9,423 reads
Blogs
Methodology for dealing with bad data in production
By Brian Kelley
Pinal Dave wrote up his methodology for what to do when you discover bad...
How to Provision an Azure SQL Database
Aside from spinning up a SQL Server instance container, the free Azure SQL Database...
Claude finds two cryptographic weaknesses (but the sky isn’t falling)
By Brian Kelley
If you haven't seen the announcement, Anthropic was able to utilize Claude (Mythos Preview)...
Forums
Symmetric Key Encryption
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The “Successful Login” Dilemma: Why Your Login Auditing Strategy Might Be Hurting Your Server
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The “Successful Login” Dilemma: Why...
Building Your Own Software
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Building Your Own Software
Question of the Day
Symmetric Key Encryption
If I run this statement in SQL Server 2025, how is the password encrypted?
CREATE SYMMETRIC KEY MySymmetricKey WITH ALGORITHM = AES_256, KEY_SOURCE = 'My secret key source passphrase', IDENTITY_VALUE = 'My secret identity value' ENCRYPTION BY PASSWORD = 'S&perS#cretP@ssword7'; GOSee possible answers