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How Do I Use SQL Server’s Always Encrypted Feature to Protect Sensitive Data?
In an earlier post I spent some time exploring symmetric encryption in SQL Server. In this article I wanted to address another kind of security offered in SQL Server: “Always Encrypted”. Always Encrypted is a security feature which was introduced in an earlier version of SQL Server and is designed to ensure that data stored…
Read MoreHow Do I Use Azure Key Vault to Secure SQL Server Encryption Keys and Protect My Data?
I started a “few posts ago” exploring the topic of SQL Server encryption, beginning with Symmetric Encryption and then looking at the “Always Encrypted” feature. In the second post, I configured Always Encrypted on a column in a SQL table and stored the encryption key in the Windows certificate store on the client machine. In…
Read MoreProvisioning a Windows VM in Azure
A Virtual Machine or “VM” is a computing resource that uses software instead of hardware to run programs and deploy apps. Azure virtual machines enable you to swiftly create dedicated computing resources that can be used just like any physical desktop or server. Choose Your Method Azure virtual machines (VMs) can be created through the Azure portal…
Read MoreAzure Containers
Azure Containers Just as Virtual Machines or “VMs” virtualize physical machines, Containers virtualize operating systems. Containers are designed to “bundle” what is minimally required (executables, binary code, libraries, and configuration files) to run a tiny microservice or a huge application in any environment. Containers thus provide an easy way to run applications without having to manage…
Read MoreHow Do I Create a Simple Azure App Service Web App?
The Azure App Service is a Platform as a Service (or PaaS) offering from Microsoft. It’s a component that provides resources for deploying web applications and for making deployed web applications accessible by HTTP clients. You can use it to host web applications, REST API’s and backend services for mobile applications in almost any programming language…
Read MoreHow Do I Use Azure Cosmos DB to Create a NoSQL Database and Manage Data?
Azure Cosmos DB is a fully managed NoSQL database designed for modern app development. Microsoft states that “…any web, mobile, gaming, and IoT application that needs to handle massive amounts of data, reads, and writes at a global scale with near-real response times for a variety of data will benefit from Cosmos DB…”. In this post I want to demonstrate…
Read MoreHow Do I Create and Run a Docker Application Using a Python Script and Dockerfile?
Create a project To create a Docker application, you need an application and a (Docker) image file. In this example we’ll use a very simple Python script as the application, so we have to create 2 files: A “py” file (the python script that will contain the code to be executed) A ‘Dockerfile’ file (the…
Read MoreHow Do I Use pgAdmin to Explore and Manage PostgreSQL Databases?
PostgreSQL is a powerful, open-source object-relational database system with 30+ years of active development that has earned it a formidable reputation for reliability, feature robustness, and performance. In this post I want to show how you can get started quickly with PostgreSQL by creating a sample database and running some simple queries against it using…
Read MoreWhat Is a SQL Cartesian Join and When Does It Occur in Queries?
Joins are an interesting and critical part of understanding and using the SQL language. One of the most curious is the Cartesian join. Simply put, cartesian joins generate a “cartesian product”, which is defined as “…the product of two sets: the product of set X and set Y (is) the set that contains all ordered…
Read MoreWhat Are the SQL Server IMAGE and VARBINARY Data Types and When Should I Use Them?
The IMAGE data type in SQL Server has been used to store the image files. Recently, Microsoft began suggesting using VARBINARY(MAX) instead of IMAGE for storing a large amount of data in a single column since IMAGE will be retired in a future version of MS SQL Server. Illustration As always, I think the best way to understand something is…
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