How to start SSMS as Administrator

Sometimes you find yourself in a situation where you are logged onto a server via RDP - and want to start SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) as another local login. I'm not talking about the actual SQL Server login process - but actually starting SSMS as another login. Why would you want to do this? Let's say you've logged onto a server with a particular login - but that login may not have permissions to start SSMS. Or you may have BUILTIN\Administrators enabled on the SQL Server , therefore you may need to initiate SSMS in the context of a... Read more →

Difference between ORIGINAL_LOGIN() and CURRENT_USER

ORIGINAL_LOGIN() and CURRENT_USER are useful functions in SQL Server , used to report on identities within SQL Server sessions. The purpose of the ORIGINAl_LOGIN() is to return the value of the login which made the original connection to SQL Server. CURRENT_USER - Returns the name of the current user. This function is equivalent to SELECT USER_NAME(). The definitions sound similar but there are some differences. When using CURRENT_USER , the value will change according to different impersonations used. In this example , we are using the EXECUTE AS functionality - which allows a login to execute code as another login... Read more →

Connection failed - SQL Server Error 772 - TCPIP Socket

Question: I've upgraded an application with a built - in Database API . When attempting to establish a SQL Server database connection this error appears - Connection failed - SQL Server Error 772 - TCPIP Socket Upon investigation the application was using the native drivers attempting to connect to a SQL Server 2016 \ Windows 2016 . As part of the testing I downloaded the ODBC 13.1 SQL Server drivers - independent of the application and tested a DSN connection to the same SQL Server - and it connected OK. I then created a DSN with native drivers and the... Read more →

TLS , SQL Server and powershell cmdlet - Get-TLSCipherSuite

Question : I have an issue from a developer about an error on the app which may be related to TLS version support by SQL Server From what I can see this could be related to a TLSV1.0 version issue. Does SQL2016 support TLSV1.0 ? how can I view which cipher suites are available on both the server hosting SQL Server and on the desktop connecting to SQL Server Answer: Microsoft SQL Server 2016 supports TLS 1.1 and TLS 1.2 . SQL Server 2016 and SQL Server 2017 on Windows versions ship with TLS 1.0 to TLS 1.2 support. You... Read more →

SQL Server database roles and GDPR

Corporate Audits and other regulatory initiatives such as GDPR , it is increasingly important to apply solid database access security practices. Users should only be able to view approved data . Avoid applying wider roles to users , such as db_owner when all the user needs is some access to 2 tables and a stored procedure. One of the tools available to the DBA is the database role. The principle of the database role is basic , and any sql server database comes with a set of default database roles such as db_datareader and db_owner. Always using the default database... Read more →