Cannot use Certificate because its Private Key is not Present

Introduction Transparent Database Encryption, or TDE as it’s colloquially known, is a great solution for data security “at rest”. That is, data is encrypted on-disk, preventing someone with a copy of the database files from…

Adding a New Transaction Log File when the Existing Log is Full

SQL Server Transaction Log files store details about every change made to a SQL Server Data File. This includes when you need to add a 2nd log file. The act of adding a 2nd log…

Build a CREATE TABLE statement from the output of a Stored Procedure with dm_exec_describe_first_result_set

Day-to-day database administration and development on SQL Server will often require creating a temporary table to hold the output of some stored procedure. The code below uses the dm_exec_describe_first_result_set 1 system dynamic management function, or…

Piecemeal Restore: Backup Set Holds a Backup of a Database Other than the Existing Database (Error)

When attempting to do a piecemeal restore of a database, using the ‘REPLACE’ option to replace the existing database, you may see the following error message: Msg 3154, Level 16, State 4, Line 63 The…

Full Recovery without Log Backups? Get Notified!

Why you need log backups in Full Recovery Model Databases in the Full Recovery Model1 log every transaction into the transaction log file. This enables point-in-time recovery2, which can be critical for meeting recovery-point objectives….