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Observing an index seek utilizing a composite index within SQL execution plan might be more than meets the eye – you should look again.  Read more...

Measures such as using special characters and numbers within a password are of little use to security if passwords are then stored in an insecure way. Sergey Gigoyan explains how to encrypt and store passwords in a SQL Server database.  Read more...

In this chapter, we will talk about the competition of Data Mining  Read more...

There is plenty that is novel and perhaps foreign to a new R user, but it's no reason to abandon your hard-earned SQL skills! In this article, Casimir Saternos explains that not only can you easily retrieve data from SQL Sources for analysis and visualisation in R, but you can also use SQL to create, clean, filter, query and otherwise manipulate datasets within R, using a wide choice of relational databases.  Read more...

In this level of the Stairway to Server Virtualization, learn how to build a Hyper-V virtual machine for SQL Server.  Read more...

In this follow-up to a previous article, Aaron Bertrand reiterates that – while you should never just accept the defaults – you really should think about which options are most applicable to your scenario.  Read more...

Learn how to load fixed width flat files to staging tables in this article from Samuel Vanga.  Read more...

Minion Enterprise can help you with security management in an enterprise.  Read more...

Automatic UNDO Management isn't voodoo or black magic, although it can seem that way when it isn't clearly understood. How does Oracle decide how many UNDO segments to create at startup, and what is the underlying goal of the process? David Fitzjarrell investigates.  Read more...

If we only use version control as a way to back up our code then it is pure overhead but actually there are real benefits. We can use source control to write better, cleaner, more readable code.  Read more...