Randomizing Result Sets with NEWID
Seth Delconte brings us a technique to solve a common request. Using the NEWID function to return a random record from a result set.
Reaching for the Clouds
This past week's news had a lot of news about cloud computing and Steve Jones comments on a few database related items.
IntelliSense Slow to Refresh
IntelliSense in SQL Server 2008 can sometimes not be very intelligent. It’s there to help you can sometimes cause more...
Mission Critical: SQL Server 2008 General Maintenance
This document contains steps that will assist you in the day-to-day SQL Server 2008 RTM Enterprise Edition (non-clustered) operations. It defines the basics of standard maintenance and checks for a single Instance of SQL Server 2008, and should be used as a starting point.
Using a Parent Child Hierarchy in SQL Server to Implement a Custom Security Scheme
I have a requirement to implement a custom security scheme where roles and the user's place in the organization hierarchy are used to determine which customers a user can access. In particular the requirements are that a sales person can only access their customers and any other role can access any customer in their level of the organization hierarchy and below. We have a simple hierarchy that is made up of regions and offices. Can you provide us with an example of how to do this?
Timing is Everything
For this Friday poll, Steve Jones asks about storing time values. Should they always be in UTC? Does that solve more problems than it creates?
Exceptional PowerShell DBA Pt 3 - Collation and Fragmentation
In this final look into his everyday essentials, Laerte Junior provides some useful scripts for the DBA that use an alternative way of error-logging. He shows how to use a PowerShell script to check and, if necessary, to defragment your indexes, write data to a SQL Server table, and change the collation for a table. Being an exceptional DBA just got a little easier.
Experiments with Data Compression in SQL Server 2008
Data compression is an Enterprise Edition only feature that was added in SQL Server 2008. It allows you to use...
SQLSaturday Acquired by PASS – Reactions
The Announcement
On February 2nd, PASS (@sqlpass), here, and Andy Warren (@sqlandy), here, announced ownership of the SQLSaturday franchise brand was transferred...
Upgrading Replication from SQL Server 2000 32-Bit to SQL Server 2008 64-Bit without re-initialization
In this article we summarized the experiences we gathered during the planning and upgrade of a customer's project. The customer is one of the largest retail shops in its area. Their architecture is made up of a main server, which is located at headquarters and hosts several hundred publications containing over a thousand articles. Regional stores are located all over the country acting as subscribers for the publications hosted on the main server. Based on the business needs and infrastructure limitations the customer set the following goals for the project:
Blogs
Microsoft Fabric OneLake Shortcuts: When to Use Them and When Not To
By James Serra
An architecture scenario Imagine separate Sales, Finance, Shared Data, and Executive Analytics workspaces. Sales...
SQL Server Security Hardening Guide Using the DoD STIG Checklist
Security on your SQL Server is important. That doesn’t need any explaining. But where...
EightKB 2026: Registration is Open!
It’s that time of year again! EightKB is back on August 20th at 13:00...
Forums
Backing Up a DMK
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The Quiet Part
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BIT_COUNT in SQL Server
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Question of the Day
Backing Up a DMK
In SQL Server 2025, I have a database with a Database Masker Key (DMK). I want to back up this key and keep a copy offline. When do I have to open this key before running the backup?
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