Books

Extreme DAX Book cover

Extreme DAX: Take your Power BI and Fabric analytics skills to the next level

Master advanced DAX in Power BI and Microsoft Fabric to build scalable semantic models, solve complex business problems, and deliver high-impact analytics using real-world scenarios and proven techniques.

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2026-06-26 (first published: )

227 reads

Pro Encryption in SQL Server 2022

Pro Encryption in SQL Server 2022: Provide the Highest Level of Protection for Your Data

This in-depth look at the encryption tools available in SQL Server shows you how to protect data by encrypting it at rest with Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) and in transit with Transport Level Security (TLS). You will know how to add the highest levels of protection for sensitive data using Always Encrypted to encrypt data also in memory and be protected even from users with the highest levels of access to the database. The book demonstrates actions you can take today to start protecting your data without changing any code in your applications, and the steps you can subsequently take to modify your applications to support implementing a gold standard in data protection.

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2026-06-22 (first published: )

3,612 reads

Delta Lake: The Definitive Guide: Modern Data Lakehouse Architectures with Data Lakes

Ready to simplify the process of building data lakehouses and data pipelines at scale? In this practical guide, learn how Delta Lake is helping data engineers, data scientists, and data analysts overcome key data reliability challenges with modern data engineering and management techniques.

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2026-05-04 (first published: )

1,137 reads

Deciphering Data Architectures

Deciphering Data Architectures

Data fabric, data lakehouse, and data mesh have recently appeared as viable alternatives to the modern data warehouse. These new architectures have solid benefits, but they're also surrounded by a lot of hyperbole and confusion. This practical book provides a guided tour of these architectures to help data professionals understand the pros and cons of each.

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2026-04-20 (first published: )

6,534 reads

Microsoft Power BI Performance Best Practices: Learn practical techniques for building high-speed Power BI solutions Microsoft Power BI Performance Best Practices

In a world dominated by data, organizations heavily rely on business intelligence tools like Power BI for deriving insights and informed decision-making. Yet, as data volumes grow and user demands increase, achieving optimal performance becomes challenging.

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2026-04-17 (first published: )

2,478 reads

SQL Server Advanced Troubleshooting and Performance Tuning: Best Practices and Techniques

This practical book provides a comprehensive overview of troubleshooting and performance tuning best practices for Microsoft SQL Server. Database engineers, including database developers and administrators, will learn how to identify performance issues, troubleshoot the system in a holistic fashion, and properly prioritize tuning efforts to attain the best system performance possible.

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2026-02-02 (first published: )

3,189 reads

The Phoenix Project

The Phoenix Project: A Graphic Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win

Adapted from the acclaimed bestselling book, The Phoenix Project Graphic Novel Volume 1 introduces readers to a stalwart cast of characters as they are challenged by the four types of work that impact complex workflows.

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2026-01-26 (first published: )

2,969 reads

Blogs

Microsoft announces new cybersecurity AI multi-model

By

Yesterday, July 27, 2026, Microsoft announced a new cybersecurity effort called Project Perception. Included...

Getting the SQL Server MCP Server Running

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If you’ve wanted a SQL Server MCP server for your databases, it’s available. The...

Introducing azsql-migration-test: Test and Validate Azure SQL Database Migrations

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Introducing azsql-migration-test, a small open-source CLI that validates your Azure SQL Database migrations against...

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Forums

Symmetric Key Encryption

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Symmetric Key Encryption

The “Successful Login” Dilemma: Why Your Login Auditing Strategy Might Be Hurting Your Server

By Pablo Echeverria

Comments posted to this topic are about the item The “Successful Login” Dilemma: Why...

Building Your Own Software

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Building Your Own Software

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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';
GO

See possible answers