DevOps and Security

Are DevOps and security diametrically opposed? An interesting pieces says no, and Steve Jones comments.

SQL Server 2016 is Out and It's Fabulous!

On the First of June, SQL Server 2016 was officially released. While it is still early days to measure the full impact of the release, the one thing that is exceedingly clear is that this is a very successful software release. There have been very few complaints online beyond the standard heard during any upgrade: […]

The Plain Simple Password Page Not So Simple Anymore

The requirements for the management of passwords have become far more complex over the past few years in response to the increasing sophistication of security breaches. Nowadays, you need to provide a range of features such as hashing, routine change of passwords, preventiion of repeat passwords, email confirmation, auto-generation of random passwords and password quality checks. Dino Esposito explains.

Have You Designed a Database from Scratch?

An interesting question from Steve Jones today, asking what is your experience with designing databases.

Practical Uses for Synonyms in SQL Server

The concept of a synonym was introduced in SQL Server 2005. Synonyms are very simple database objects, but have the potential to save a lot of time and work if implemented with a little bit of thought. This article discusses what exactly a synonym is, and a few examples of how to use them.

Persistent PowerShell: The PowerShell Profile

You can mould PowerShell to the way you want to work, with all the settings and modules that you require, by using the profiles. Profiles are PowerShell scripts that run at startup, and once you have understood where they are and when each is used, they have a whole range of uses that make using PowerShell a lot more convenient.

Why Use R Services?

R Services were added to SQL Server 2016, and there are customers using this feature to improve their business processes.

Custom Solution to Measure SQL Server Query Performance Improvements

Performance tuning is a creative process which requires a lot of attention and manual work. SQL Server 2016's Query Store makes some of this work much easier, but what if you're using an earlier version? Fikrat Azizov shows how to automate assessing SQL Server query performance changes by using custom performance collection tools and reports.

Byte Me: Behind Times

Altering an Existing Table to Support Temporal Data

In this article Greg Larsen explores using the temporal table feature of SQL Server 2016 to create a history table for an existing SQL Server table.