Scripts

Technical Article

SQL Server Current Activity SuperCheck

This gives a quick check of the current activity on a SQL Server. I developed this after getting continually frustrated with "Current Activity" in SQL/EM getting blocked by processes when I needed to see blocking issues on the server. It has been immensely valuable to me in quickly identifying production-stopping issues on the database. It […]

4.2 (5)

You rated this post out of 5. Change rating

2001-08-13

4,880 reads

Technical Article

Optimize Character Field Usage

This stored procedure was designed to scan all your character based columns in a particular database and show the minimum, maximum and average data length. As well as give an efficiency rating of the data stored. Input: None Output: Table name, Column name, Defined datatype and length, Average length of data for that column, Minimum […]

You rated this post out of 5. Change rating

2001-08-10

1,675 reads

Technical Article

Email using CDONTS (via smtp)

Here is a very basic example script for sending emails via CDONTS. This comes from the sqlmag web-site forum. Although fine, remember that it will use the local SMTP server to forward emails onto the destination user. If your servers smtp process can not reach an exchange/group-wise/other mail box on your network, then this code […]

You rated this post out of 5. Change rating

2001-08-09

3,555 reads

Technical Article

Generate Insert Statements Easily

This script will generate insert statements for the given tables. You can pass the tables names, separated by commas, into sp_DataAsInsCommand stored procedure as in the example below: EXEC sp_DataAsInsCommand 'employee,titleauthor,pub_info' Updated on 5/25/01 to correct an issue with columns that are short like a column defined as char(1), to correct another issue with the […]

3 (9)

You rated this post out of 5. Change rating

2001-08-09

4,634 reads

Technical Article

Drop all Connections from a Database

On development servers, at times there is a need for dropping and renaming database(s). These scripts can be used for achieving these tasks. The usp_DropDB script will kill the connections to the database and then drop the database. It takes care of the space in the database name, if any and also makes sure that […]

5 (2)

You rated this post out of 5. Change rating

2001-08-08

5,416 reads

Blogs

PASS Data Community Summit 2024 Day 3 Keynote

By

It’s been an amazing week here, as well as a long week. I’m tired,...

A New Word: Skidding

By

skidding – v. intr. the practice of making offhand comments that sound sarcastic but...

PASS Summit – Thursday

By

Let’s start with the keynote. The biggest take away was how having to support...

Read the latest Blogs

Forums

Step by step guide to setup PostgreSQL on Docker

By Arvind Toorpu

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Step by step guide to...

Backing up the Database Encryption Key

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Backing up the Database Encryption...

Technology Fears

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Technology Fears

Visit the forum

Question of the Day

Backing up the Database Encryption Key

In my SQL Server 2022 database, I run this:

USE Sales;  
GO  
CREATE DATABASE ENCRYPTION KEY  
WITH ALGORITHM = AES_256  
ENCRYPTION BY SERVER CERTIFICATE MyServerCert;  
GO
This works, but I want to prepare for the future and potential issues. How do I back up my DEK?

See possible answers