The first T-SQL Tuesday of 2019 is hosted by Garry Bargsley (@gbargsley), and the topic is “Automate All the Things”. Garry wants to know what this phrase means to each of us. What do we want to automate? What is our go-to technology for automation? To me, this was super easy. Surprise, surprise! It’s Biml, of course 🤓 Since this post is part of T-SQL Tuesday, I wanted to go back to the basics and write about how you can generate SQL using Biml. But first, a little bit of background for those who are not that familiar with Biml.

T-SQL Tuesday #101 is hosted by Jens Vestergaard (@vestergaardj), and the topic is My Essential SQL Server Tools. There are several tools that I use every single day, such as Notepad++, Redgate SQL Prompt, and BimlExpress. Since I have already covered my favorite tools in other blog posts, I want to take a slightly different approach this time and share some of my favorite online tools.

T-SQL Tuesday #99 is hosted by Aaron Bertrand (@AaronBertrand) and the topic is Dealer’s Choice. What does that mean? Aaron wanted us to choose between two topics: write about something we are passionate about outside the SQL Server community, or write about T-SQL bad habits and best practices. I’m too afraid to argue with Aaron, so I chose the first option 😅

But what did I want to write about? Truth be told, I’m pretty boring. I don’t have any real hobbies outside of tech, just a few interests. I first considered writing about hiking. I need to disconnect completely once in a while, and my favorite way of doing that is to get sweaty while walking for hours up a mountain or waterfall. My Instagram (@cathrinesqueee) is my highlight reel, full of pictures and happy memories from my trips.

However, instead of embedding all the pictures that are already on Instagram, I decided to write about something completely different. Something obscure. Something fun and geeky from way before I got involved in the SQL Server community. Something from my good old teenage fangirling days…

T-SQL Tuesday #68 is hosted by Andy Yun (@SQLBek). Many SQL Server defaults are not ideal, and most of us have a list of defaults we always change. Andy wants us to Just Say No to Defaults and blog about what, why or how we change defaults.

If you are an SSIS developer like me, there is a big chance that the ProtectionLevel in SSIS Packages is on top of your list of defaults to change. The default ProtectionLevel is EncryptSensitiveWithUserKey (ugh), but most of the time it is not the best option. Raise your hand if you have ever asked your favorite search engine for advice on issues like “SSIS package fails in SQL Server Agent job” or if you have ever heard someone exclaim “but it works on my machine!?” 😅

There are many great blog posts about the different ProtectionLevels, why you probably want to change to DontSaveSensitive as your default, and how to use configurations and parameters instead of encrypted SSIS packages. I will not go into details about any of that in this post, but I will use ProtectionLevel as an example default property you want to change in many SSIS packages at the same time.

How do you batch update properties in existing SSIS packages? You probably don’t want to open up every single package and change them manually?

T-SQL Tuesday #66 was hosted by me on May 12th. The topic of the month was Monitoring. We all monitor something while working with SQL Server, and this month’s blog posts covers all kinds of topics by DBAs, developers and BI professionals 🤓