Most SQL Server instances are installed with the default values, but that's not always the way it should be. Often there is the need to "move" databases to comply with standards, free up disk space, or some other reason. Moving the system databases can be a little tricky, but author Vince Iacoboni brings us his code and technique for easily doing this for SQL Server 2005 databases.
Isolation levels are used to prioritize the acccess to a resource. SQL Server 2005 extends upon the support for isolation levels in 2000 with several new features including an additional level.
Continuing with this series looking at encryption functions.
Continuing with his series on professional development, Andy Warren takes a look at funding some of your career growth and why it pays to invest in yourself.
A few proposed changes to the newsletter. Read about them and give us some feedback on what you think.
Continuing on with his series on ADTs, Yakov Shlafman takes a look at working with schema changes when your ADT is on a column used as a primary or foreign key.
I came across an interesting blog post on jobs, which actually caught me eye after another blog on time spent on various things, many of which are not necessarily important to your business.
When a function is wrapped around an indexed column in the WHERE clause it will usually prevent the proper usage of that index. This article gives an example and discusses what other options are available.
We are always searching for new ways to improve the performance of our database systems. Raghavendra Narayana brings us a new article that examines an idea for rebuilding partitions and indexes based on data access: in real time!
I think you'll be happy to know that there are interesting people out there. One of my neighbors, maybe a couple miles away, has a windmill that I've watched run regularly as I drove my daughter to school all last year. I finally grabbed their address one day and wrote them a letter, not wanting to just walk up to their door with a list of questions. I waited patiently for a couple weeks and finally got an email.
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...
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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