Books

Murach's SQL Server 2022 for developers

Murach's SQL Server 2022 for Developers is a comprehensive guide to database design and management. This computer book teaches essential SQL statements through clear examples and practical exercises. The book's unique paired-pages format makes learning database software concepts easier, while providing in-depth coverage of database management fundamentals. Ideal for both beginners and seasoned developers seeking to enhance their data management skills.

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2026-01-05 (first published: )

1,402 reads

The Phoenix Project

The Phoenix Project

In this newly updated and expanded edition of the bestselling The Phoenix Project, co-author Gene Kim includes a new afterword and a deeper delve into the Three Ways as described in The DevOps Handbook.

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2025-10-27 (first published: )

3,294 reads

Big Data Analytics cover

Big Data Analytics with Spark: A Practitioner's Guide to Using Spark for Large Scale Data Analysis

Big Data Analytics with Spark is a step-by-step guide for learning Spark, which is an open-source fast and general-purpose cluster computing framework for large-scale data analysis. You will learn how to use Spark for different types of big data analytics projects, including batch, interactive, graph, and stream data analysis as well as machine learning. In addition, this book will help you become a much sought-after Spark expert.

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2025-10-08 (first published: )

5,546 reads

The Definitive Guide to Azure Data Engineering: Modern ELT, DevOps, and Analytics on the Azure Cloud Platform

The Definitive Guide to Azure Data Engineering: Modern ELT, DevOps, and Analytics on the Azure Cloud Platform

Build efficient and scalable batch and real-time data ingestion pipelines, DevOps continuous integration and deployment pipelines, and advanced analytics solutions on the Azure Data Platform. This book teaches you to design and implement robust data engineering solutions using Data Factory, Databricks, Synapse Analytics, Snowflake, Azure SQL database, Stream Analytics, Cosmos database, and Data Lake Storage Gen2.

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2025-10-03 (first published: )

10,558 reads

The Unicorn Project

In The Unicorn Project, we follow Maxine, a senior lead developer and architect, as she is exiled to the Phoenix Project, to the horror of her friends and colleagues, as punishment for contributing to a payroll outage. She tries to survive in what feels like a heartless and uncaring bureaucracy and to work within a system where no one can get anything done without endless committees, paperwork, and approvals.

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2025-09-15 (first published: )

4,453 reads

SQL Cookbook: Query Solutions and Techniques for All SQL Users

You may know SQL basics, but are you taking advantage of its expressive power? This second edition applies a highly practical approach to Structured Query Language (SQL) so you can create and manipulate large stores of data. Based on real-world examples, this updated cookbook provides a framework to help you construct solutions and executable examples in several flavors of SQL, including Oracle, DB2, SQL Server, MySQL, and PostgreSQL.

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2025-08-18 (first published: )

1,896 reads

Pro T-SQL 2022: Toward Speed, Scalability, and Standardization for SQL Server Developers

Learn how to write and design simple and efficient T-SQL code. This is a hands-on book that teaches you how to write better T-SQL with examples and straightforward explanations.

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2025-08-06 (first published: )

14,047 reads

Blogs

Microsoft announces new cybersecurity AI multi-model

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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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Symmetric Key Encryption

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

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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

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