Technical Article

Stored procedure: Generate code for ad hoc data operations

A SQL Server DBA often needs to perform ad hoc operations on data in their databases. The tasks can typically be handled with simple T-SQL statements, but other times a more complex operation is called for – and having to manually enter all the T-SQL code necessary for such an operation is not appealing! It can be difficult to perfect the syntax, and tedious to list column names once, twice or even three times. Fortunately, useful template code can be easily generated instead of being entered by hand.

Technical Article

Applying the Principle of Least Privilege to User Accounts on Windows

A defense-in-depth strategy, with overlapping layers of security, is the best way to counter these threats, and the least-privileged user account (LUA) approach is an important part of that defensive strategy. The LUA approach ensures that users follow the principle of least privilege and always log on with limited user accounts. This strategy also aims to limit the use of administrative credentials to administrators, and then only for administrative tasks.

Blogs

Advice I Like: Pyramid Schemes

By

If someone is trying to convince you it’s not a pyramid scheme, it’s a...

Using Prompt AI for a Travel Data Analysis

By

I was looking back at my year and decided to see if SQL Prompt...

FinOps for Kubernetes: Leveraging OpenCost, KubeGreen, and Kubecost for Cost Efficiency

By

In the era of cloud-native applications, Kubernetes has become the default standard platform for...

Read the latest Blogs

Forums

Database file shrink issue.

By Tac11

Hi experts, I have a 3+ TB database on a 2019 sql server which...

The North Star for the Year

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item The North Star for the...

Multiple Escape Characters

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Multiple Escape Characters

Visit the forum

Question of the Day

Multiple Escape Characters

In SQL Server 2025, I run this code (in a database with the appropriate collation):

SELECT UNISTR('%*3041%*308A%*304C%*3068 and good night', '%*') AS 'A Classic';
What is returned?

See possible answers