What’s a Database Encryption Key (DEK) in TDE

The encryption mechanisms in SQL Server are interesting, and they work well, but they are somewhat poorly named. I ran...

Backup/Restore–What’s My Status?

The day begins and you find yourself going through a list in your mind of things that need to be...

Compare Execution Plans

Have you ever wanted to compare execution plans from SQL Server Management Studio? Well with the newer version of the...

Getting Started with Power BI: Setup (Part 1 of 3)

This is part 1 of the Getting Started with Power BI series. Power BI is a powerful reporting and dashboarding...

Microsoft Data Platform MVP Award

I’m very pleased, humbled, surprised and overall gleeful to announce I’m awarded the Microsoft Data Platform MVP 2017 Award.

This is...

My SQL logins don’t work. Again.

My recent post on why SQL logins aren’t working has generated a couple of follow up posts. The first one...

Using a DMK in TDE

When you setup TDE, you need to create a DMK (Database Master Key) in the master database if one doesn’t...

Where is that Preemptive Wait coming from? Database Ownership and Performance: a journey through SQL Server internals with XEvents, Windbg and Wireshark

(EN)In this article I will bring together several techniques for troubleshooting a performance- and security-related “phenomenon” I recently noticed when doing some tests with Natively Compiled Stored Procedures.

(DE) In...

Availability Group on SQL Server 2016

The Challenge
One of our clients in the gaming industry wanted to set up a high availability solution in their data...

Changing what SSMS opens on startup

When you open SSMS a connection window automatically comes up. Then once you pick your server, connection type, username and...