There have been some strange things that have happened in this world that I would never have expected. The Red Sox winning the World Series, Macs with Intel processors, and are things I never thought I'd see. But none of the them seems as strange as this to me.
One of the fundamental rules of a stable, controlled production system is that you apply updates singly, after they've been tested, and you document the change. This way you can ensure that if a problem occurs, you can do some backtracking to see what might have caused instability.
An article explaining where to find packages when saved to SQL Server.
Haidong discusses the importance of monitoring disk usage over a period of time and has some great TSQL code to help you do the monitoring!
I caught this quote from Microsoft Watch, and thought it was very interesting. It definitely addresses an issue I've wondered about for some time. It talks about the WGA server issues and had this great quote from the WGA Product Manager:
Business Intelligence Architect Bill Pearson introduces the basic .Properties function, within the first of a two-part article surrounding this important member of our MDX toolsets.
Take a look at a sample chapter and see who won copies of this book from our Question of the Day Contest.
Do you like recruiters? Do you use them? It's almost impossible not to use them these days when looking for a job. So many of the listings on online job boards are from recruiters and many have deals to place people, so chances are you'll at least deal with on even if they don't get you a job.
With business intelligence and the Anaylsis Services platform becoming more and more popular, this has to be the hottest development team for SQL Server. Join us with a look at one of the leaders of Analysis Services development, Rob Zare.
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...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Symmetric Key Encryption
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The “Successful Login” Dilemma: Why...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Building Your Own Software
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