If you're a data analyst juggling varied datasets, mastering SQL data type conversions isn't just handy—it's crucial. Whether you’re making different data types play nice together or boosting query...
2025-05-28 (first published: 2025-05-14)
557 reads
It’s that time of the month again, when the T-SQL Tuesday blog party takes place. I manage this site, and am looking for hosts all the time. This month...
2025-05-13
37 reads
I’m hosting T-SQL Tuesday this month and our topic is Managing SQL Agent Jobs. In this post, we’ll be taking a look at a very handy combination of dbatools...
2025-05-21 (first published: 2025-05-13)
425 reads
The people of Digitown are being targeted by phishermen, and they need my help to stop them in their tracks.
The problem
The police have asked for our assistance, and we’ve...
2025-06-02 (first published: 2025-05-13)
211 reads
My first time at SQL Saturday New York City was an absolute blast! Thank you so much to the organizers and the incredible people who chatted with me during...
2025-05-12
193 reads
Just a quick one this morning. I’m on the road and haven’t worked up a full blog post, apologies. I’ve been using the preview for SQL Server Management Studio...
2025-05-12
210 reads
Businesses rely on data for decision-making and strategy, but data silos hinder productivity. These silos lead to ineffective decisions from incomplete data, wasted resources through redundant efforts, and missed...
2025-05-30 (first published: 2025-05-12)
415 reads
I was lucky enough to attend SQL Saturday Austin 2025 a little over a week ago in conjunction with some work at the Redgate office. The opening keynote at...
2025-05-19 (first published: 2025-05-12)
959 reads
Back in 2018, I wrote a blog post about my Home Lab environment, which I had built around VMware vSphere to showcase various SQL Server workloads and demonstrate how...
2025-05-23 (first published: 2025-05-12)
327 reads
lookaback– n. the chock of meeting back up with someone and learning that your mental image of them had fallen wildly out of date – having grown up or...
2025-05-09
22 reads
By Brian Kelley
Yesterday, July 27, 2026, Microsoft announced a new cybersecurity effort called Project Perception. Included...
By Steve Jones
If you’ve wanted a SQL Server MCP server for your databases, it’s available. The...
Introducing azsql-migration-test, a small open-source CLI that validates your Azure SQL Database migrations against...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Symmetric Key Encryption
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The “Successful Login” Dilemma: Why...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Building Your Own Software
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