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Encrypting Without Secrets

Do you have a Web site or other system that deals in secrets of any sort? It seems like every time I give a security talk, people ask how to deal with the sticky problem of storing secrets. Connection strings with passwords are an obvious problem. You're better off simply using integrated security to get rid of those secrets, at least with SQL Server™, or an Oracle database. But what about credit card numbers and other financial or personal information? Can encryption help?

Technical Article

The CEO’s Guide to The Top 5 Issues that Misguide Business Intelligenc

When considering business intelligence (BI) software, it is essential to be aware of underlying issues that can seriously impact on your bottom line. In a country where most businesses have information stored in several different databases, it’s no secret that the BI strategy you choose will effect your profit and loss target. From data collection and integration to data analysis, the holy grail of Business Intelligence software combines your disparate databases to provide a decision support system that will enable you to make key conclusions using all of the available information.

SQLServerCentral Article

Brooke Philpott of sqlSentry

The guys that build software rarely get exposure of credit. Maybe that's why so many of them turn to open source where they get more well known. After a meeting at TechEd 2005, Andy Warren had the chance to get some interesting interview questions answered by Brooke Philpott, one of the 2 core developers of sqlSentry. And not a marketing guy.

External Article

SQL Server and MOM 2005

In this series of articles, you will learn the basics of installing Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 as well as how to use MOM to monitor SQL Server. This article takes advantage of virtualization. We will use VMware Workstation 5 to create the lab to introduce you to the basics of installing MOM to monitor SQL Server.

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Question of the Day

Adding and Dropping Columns I

I have this table in my SQL Server 2022 database:

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[CityList]
(
[CityNameID] [int] NOT NULL IDENTITY(1, 1),
[CityName] [varchar] (30) COLLATE SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS NULL
) ON [PRIMARY]
GO
I decide to add two new columns for the StateProvince and Country. What code should I use?

See possible answers