Hi Folks,
Great to see that Mai and the team *just* managed to get the April edition of the SoliqQ Journal out in April -> on the last day.
I've been meaning to write a short series on SQL Server encryption for some time, so I've provided the first of a three part series on encryption. This first part covers core encryption technologies that are relevant to SQL Server and explains cryptography, digital signatures, digital envelopes, certificates, certificate revocation lists, etc.
I really enjoyed Guillermo Bas' article on configuring SharePoint 2010 to use forms-based authentication instead of standard Active Directory based Windows authentication.
I often describe a learning maturity curve for SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS). I think there are multiple phases:
- When you use it as supplied out of the box
- When you start to use scripting
- When you start to build components to place into the toolbox
- When you start to generate packages programmatically
This last level is often a hard one to get started on but this month, Enrique Catala provides the info you need to start learning to do this. Salvador Ramos also describes how SSIS fits into typical BI projects.
Herbert Albert and Gianluca Hotz continue their amazing exploration of using PowerShell in conjunction with SQL Server, and this month, they cover logging and SQL Server Agent.
Milos Radivojevic talks about parameter sniffing problems and the common complaint where a user executes code from SSMS and it works fine, only to see it perform poorly in production. Regarding plan caching, I should also provide a link to the MSDN/Technet whitepaper I updated for 2008 (Plan Caching in SQL Server 2008) here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee343986(SQL.100).aspx
Finally, there is an article that I found quite fascinating, where Mark Tabladillo described how to use PowerShell in conjunction with SQL Server Data Mining. I'd never even thought about combining those two.
All in all, it's a great read and is now available here: http://www.solidq.com/sqj Well done to our team that brought it together again! (Note that the journal is also available in Spanish and Portuguese. Other language versions are released within a few weeks of the English version)