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How to Protect SQL Server from Hackers and Penetration Tests

On June 3rd, the InfosecMatter blog published a post titled “Top #10 Vulnerabilities: Internal Infrastructure Pentest“. This blog post detailed the top most common vulnerabilities in Windows servers and networks found during more than 60 internal infrastructure penetration tests around the world. After reading this article, I was prompted to actively look for similar resources on SQL Server penetration testing, and I got some interesting findings. Check out my blog post at the Madeira Data Solutions website for the details.

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T-SQL Tuesday #128 – Learn from Others

This month’s #tsql2sday is hosted by the @AirborneGeek (t|b), who asks us to take a lesson from something frequently done by pilots – learning from accidents and mistakes done by others. As a long-time SQL Server Consultant DBA, I have learned from quite a lot of mistakes done (mostly) by others, seeing as a significant part of my job description is to come over and fix such mistakes. So, today I’ll use this opportunity to talk about one such interesting incident.

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Planning a Migration from Azure SQL DB to Azure Managed Instance

Problem

Your organization has been using Azure SQL DB (Single Database) for a while now, and has come to the realization that a lot of missing features are hindering your development efforts and limiting your product offerings.

You have a need for wider access to instance-level features on the one hand, but you still want to retain managed service features in the Azure cloud, such as 99.99% uptime SLA, automatic updates, Advanced Data Security, and Azure SQL Log Analytics, and basically not having to manage an IaaS virtual machine.

Therefore, you reach the conclusion that Azure SQL Managed Instance (MI) is the right solution for you at this time.

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Bam! Knock it up a notch!

Control SQL Jobs based on HADR Role – Taking it to the Next Level

In one of my previous blog posts, Automatically Enable or Disable Jobs based on HADR Role, I provided a solution for automatically enabling or disabling scheduled jobs in combination with Availability Groups and Database Mirroring. In this blog post, I’m going to build upon my previous solution and improve it even further – taking it to the next level of automation!

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T-SQL Tuesday #126 – Responding to COVID-19

This month’s #tsql2sday is hosted by the legendary Glenn Berry (b|t), and asks us about what we’ve been doing as a response to COVID-19. Madeira Data Solutions did quite a lot to chip in during these difficult times. Hopefully, it’s enough to make some kind of difference.

Due to the nature of this post’s content, it was published on the Madeira Data Solutions Blog. Check it out!

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The new “metadata-only column changes” feature in SQL Server 2016 is useless!

You might have seen this blog post by Paul White: New Metadata-Only Column Changes in SQL Server 2016. It talks about how, when a table is compressed, you can change (i.e. increase) a column’s data type without having to create a new table and migrate the data into it, and without having to refactor all of the underlying data. But, not everything is rainbows and unicorns…

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Webinar – Development Lifecycle Basics for DBAs at the Data Weekender

The #DataWeekender is a free online conference scheduled for May 2nd, organized by the SQL Server community’s finest, as an online replacement for all the SQL Saturdays and other SQL Server conferences that were being canceled en masse due to the COVID-19 situation.

One of my submitted sessions was accepted:

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T-SQL Tuesday #125 – Getting started with database unit testing

This month’s #tsql2sday is hosted by Hamish Watson (b|t) and this time touches on the extremely important topic of database unit testing. Its high importance and value should be a no-brainer. But it can be a very difficult topic, and the hardest thing about it, in my opinion, is knowing where to start. Hopefully, with this blog post, I can help you out with that.

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