Thanks for the article Steve.

...

I've worked with DBA's who dragged their feet on patching every...single...month and couldn't get IT management to support me on patching. So again, less technical...

An update every 30 minutes is a bit much, but depends on the situation. If I'm with a real time system, then I might want this. Certainly I've had incident...

Self interest.

If I'm talking to you, I ask you. what if you upset your boss tomorrow and he/she let you go? What do you do? How easy is it to...

Same. It really requires someone that cares and empathizes with what people see on the outside. And support from management to be more transparent, even if not detailed.

The cert backup isn't protected by the master key. The cert is.

The backup is protected by a password when you run it.

Should have a backup of the cert periodically.

I don't worry about the SMK, as this can be overridden, so it's more if you plan to restore this exact server setup...

You shouldn't. ALTER MASTER KEY WITH REGENERATE should decrypt the protection on the cert and then re-encrypt it with the new key. The cert protects the DEK, which isn't something...

I think that is the genesis of this trend.

However, doing both can help your career, especially...

Engineer is protected in many places, but not sure that's slowed the use of this as a title for a position rather than a certification.

At least not in the US.

the AT TIME ZONE and some other math functions don't process as efficiently in exec plans, as a side note. Learned that recently.

UTC storage, is still the best, IMHO.

client tools are always tough.

Column truncation has gotten better with 2019.

bcp is unlikeley to go db to db, but it would be nice.

It requires a mindset that looks long term, not this quarter or year. You have to think that we want to be able to adjust and easily fix our code...

If you always store in UTC, then conversion is easy. Browsers and all desktops store regional settings that a web app or thicker app can read. They can do the...

I'm in, way0utwest Cowboys.

I don't think that's the appropriate answer. It is something that can work, but having spent some time there, and with some developers, few people are interested in that type....