Deep Dive into Changing Database Collation
Changing Database Collation Through Primary keys, Foreign Keys, Default and Check Constraints and more.
Testing times with SMO
SMO gives every appearance of being a great example of over-reliance on automated testing at the expense of manual exploratory testing.
Microsoft Data Driven SQL Server Event - Watch Live
Hear from Microsoft engineering experts on the latest features in SQL Server 2016 before the live event. Learn about new business intelligence capabilities like built-in mobile BI, fully integrated advanced analytics, security innovations, mission critical in-memory performance and new hybrid cloud solutions.
Performance Surprises and Assumptions : SET NOCOUNT ON
Aaron Bertrand (@AaronBertrand) revisits the impact that eliminating DONE_IN_PROC messages using SET NOCOUNT ON may or may not have on query performance
Data Science for SQL Folks: Leveraging SQL and R
Learn about how to build value driven analytics with SQL Server and R.
Spousal Surcharges
Today we have a guest editorial from Andy Warren that examines the costs of family at work.
SQL Server T-SQL Tuning -TVF and Scalar Functions
A UDF is very convenient for centralising business logic as we can specify a set of business logic in one UDF which references multiple stored procedures and ad-hoc queries. However, they can lead to significant performance degradation due to their demands on the CPU
Open is Not Necessarily More Secure
Just because we can view the source code for software doesn't mean it is more secure.
ReadyRoll is a Fully Fledged Redgate Tool
In June last year we got in touch to let you know that Redgate acquired ReadyRoll. Over the last few months, ReadyRoll went from a one-man project to having a team of developers, testers, and support engineers behind it. Dan Nolan, the founder of ReadyRoll, is now a product manager at Redgate. And next week it’s time for ReadyRoll to become a fully-fledged Redgate tool available from www.red-gate.com.
Blogs
Narrow Task Decomposition in AI Pipeline Agents
A nightly load into sales_fact fails. Ask an orchestrating agent to break down the...
Car Update: August 2026
By Steve Jones
It’s been some time since I provided a car update, so I decided to...
Microsoft Fabric OneLake Shortcuts: When to Use Them and When Not To
By James Serra
An architecture scenario Imagine separate Sales, Finance, Shared Data, and Executive Analytics workspaces. Sales...
Forums
Managing Incidents and Fighting Fires
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Backing Up a DMK
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Backing Up a DMK
The Quiet Part
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Quiet Part
Question of the Day
Backing Up a DMK
In SQL Server 2025, I have a database with a Database Masker Key (DMK). I want to back up this key and keep a copy offline. When do I have to open this key before running the backup?
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