Will Assaf


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"What did it take to become a MVP?"

@william_a_dba what did it take to become a MVP?— kennyb7322 (@kennyb7322) March 3, 2020

This tweet made me pause. I'll explain.Backstory (skip if you're not interested):On Sunday March 1,...

2020-03-17 (first published: )

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Blog Post

ACM Lecture at SELU

Had the pleasure of presenting to Dr. Ghassan Alkadi and a full house at the Southeastern La. University ACM group. Big thanks to the bright student organizers for inviting...

2020-02-27 (first published: )

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Blogs

Don’t Miss Out – SQL Server Query Tuning Fundamentals Starts Next Monday!

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Next Monday, February 9, 2026, my one-day live online training SQL Server Query Tuning...

Monday Monitor Tips: SQL Auditing Preview

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One of the features we advocates have been advocating for is a better way...

SQL Server 2025 CU1 Fixes the Docker Desktop AVX Issue on macOS

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Microsoft fixed the AVX instruction issue in SQL Server 2025 CU1. The container now...

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25 Years of SQL Server Central

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item 25 Years of SQL Server...

The Decoded Value

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Decoded Value

Deploying SQL Server Developer Edition in Kubernetes: A Cost-Effective Alternative to RDS

By Sujai Krishna

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Deploying SQL Server Developer Edition...

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Question of the Day

The Decoded Value

In SQL Server 2025, what is returned from this code:

DECLARE @message VARCHAR(50) = 'Hello SQL Server 2025!';
DECLARE @encoded VARCHAR(MAX);

SET @encoded = BASE64_ENCODE(CAST(@message AS VARBINARY(1000)));
SELECT BASE64_DECODE(@encoded) 

See possible answers