K. Brian Kelley

Brian Kelley is an author, columnist, Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA), and former Microsoft Data Platform (SQL Server) MVP (2009-2016) focusing primarily on SQL Server and Windows security. Brian currently serves as a data architect as well as an independent infrastructure/security architect concentrating on Active Directory, SQL Server, and Windows Server. He has served in a myriad of other positions including senior database administrator, data warehouse architect, web developer, incident response team lead, and project manager. Brian has spoken at 24 Hours of PASS, IT/Dev Connections, SQLConnections, the Techno Security and Forensics Investigation Conference, the IT GRC Forum, SyntaxCon, and at various SQL Saturdays, Code Camps, and user groups.

2017 Awards   

2015 Awards   

2014 Awards   

2013 Awards   

2011 Awards   

2009 Awards   

Category	Title
Auditing and Compliance	Audit SQL Server Logins without filling up the Error Log
Auditing and Compliance	Auditing Failed Logins in SQL Server
Auditing and Compliance	Auditing SELECT statements in SQL Server 2008
Auditing and Compliance	Auditing SQL Server 2012 Server Roles
Auditing and Compliance	Auditing SQL Server Password Age
Auditing and Compliance	Auditing SQL Server Permissions and Roles for the Server
Auditing and Compliance	Auditing SQL Server User and Role Permissions for Databases
Auditing and Compliance	Auditing sysadmin on multiple servers using PowerShell
Auditing and Compliance	Automate collection and saving of failed logins for SQL Server
Auditing and Compliance	How to Audit Login Changes on a SQL Server
Auditing and Compliance	Identifying What Runs at Startup on SQL Server
Auditing and Compliance	SQL Server Encryption To Block DBAs Data Access
Auditing and Compliance	SQL Server Security Auditing to Match Logins And Users
Auditing and Compliance	Tables and Views for Auditing SQL Server Logins
Auditing and Compliance	Using a Backup to Find SQL Server Security Changes
Auditing and Compliance	What to Audit at the SQL Server Instance Level
Auditing and Compliance	What Windows Server Groups Should I Audit on my SQL Servers?
Backup	How to Identify and Backup the Latest SQL Server Database in a Series
Backup	The Statement Backup Log is Not Allowed for a SQL Server Transaction Log Backup
Clustering	Understanding why there is still downtime for SQL Server with Microsoft Clustering
Contained Databases	How to Audit for SQL Server Users in Contained Databases
Database Administration	Determining Drive Letters in Use by SQL Server Databases
Database Administration	How to move a SQL Server database within the same instance without losing settings
Database Configurations	Verify Connectivity to SQL Server
Database Design	Data Modeling: Understanding First Normal Form in SQL Server
Database Design	Dealing with a No NULL Requirement for Data Modeling in SQL Server
Database Design	Understanding First Normal Form in SQL Server
Disaster Recovery	Disaster Recovery Planning for Microsoft SQL Server - Getting Backups and Restores Right
Disaster Recovery	Retrieving SQL Server Server Roles for Disaster Recovery
Disaster Recovery	Scripting SQL Server Database Owners for Disaster Recovery
Dynamic Management Views and Functions	Return SQL Server Connections Information Using sys.dm_exec_connections
Dynamic Management Views and Functions	SQL Server Case Sensitive Collations and DMVs
Encryption	Finding Encrypted Data in a SQL Server Database
Encryption	SQL Server Encryption Symmetric vs. Asymmetric Keys
Encryption	Using authenticators with SQL Server encryption
Encryption	Where Does SQL Server Store Its Certificates
Functions System	Understanding and Using SQL Server sys.dm_exec_requests
Functions System	Understanding and Using sys.dm_exec_sessions in SQL Server
Hardware	How to Monitor Storage Performance with a Single Application
Integration Services Import and Export Wizard	Export data to an earlier SQL Server version
Linked Servers	On demand creation and destruction of a SQL Server Linked Server
Linked Servers	On Demand Linked Server Creation with a SQL Server Login
Monitoring	SQL Server Forensics Analysis Based on Database Backup Size
Performance Tuning	SQL Server Implicit Conversions Performance Issues
Policy Based Management	SQL Server Policy Management to Enforce Database Settings in Development
PowerShell	Parsing all the files in a directory using PowerShell
Professional Development Books	New Book Introduction To SQL Server
Profiler and Trace	Using the Default Trace in SQL Server
Reporting Services Dynamic Reports	Getting started with report filters in SQL Server Reporting Services
Restore	How to Automate SQL Server Restores for a Test Server
Restore	Recovering a SQL Server TDE Encrypted Database Successfully
Restore	Why Can't I Restore a Database to an Older Version of SQL Server?
Scripts	Script SQL Server Logins for Disaster Recovery
Security	Add a Salt with the SQL Server HASHBYTES Function
Security	Application Database Security Design - Part 1 - Authentication for SQL Server
Security	Application Database Security Design Part 2 - Multiple Levels of Access to SQL Server
Security	Auditing Critical Windows Files and Folders for SQL Server
Security	Automated way to get all port information for SQL Server instances
Security	Best Practices to Secure the SQL Server sa Account
Security	Blocking SQL Server db_datareader, db_datawriter, and db_owner Permissions
Security	Breaking ownership chaining within a schema in SQL Server
Security	Can I stop a System Admin from enabling SQL Server xp_cmdshell?
Security	Cannot make a role a member of itself error in SQL Server
Security	Database level permissions for SQL Server 2005 and 2008
Security	Determining Permission Issues for a SQL Server Object
Security	Dynamic SQL and Ownership Chaining in SQL Server
Security	Filtering Columns in SQL Server Using Views
Security	Filtering SQL Server Columns Using Column Level Permissions
Security	Get Back into SQL Server After You've Locked Yourself Out
Security	Grant limited permissions to create SQL Server views in another schema Part 1
Security	Grant limited permissions to create SQL Server views in another schema Part 2
Security	How come I can create SQL Server objects but not access these objects
Security	How to Clone a SQL Server Login, Part 1 of 3
Security	How to Clone a SQL Server Login, Part 2 of 3
Security	How to Clone a SQL Server Login, Part 3 of 3
Security	How to configure password enforcement options for standard SQL Server logins
Security	How to Connect to a SQL Server Named Instance
Security	How to Create Secure SQL Server Service Accounts
Security	How to Enable Secondary Decryption of SQL Server Symmetric Keys
Security	How to Setup Row Level Security for SQL Server
Security	How to Unlock a SQL Login Without Resetting the Password
Security	Identify Local Administrators on a SQL Server box using PowerShell
Security	Identifying the Tie Between Logins and Users
Security	Implementing SQL Server Security with Stored Procedures and Views
Security	Implicit Permissions Due to Ownership Chaining or Scopes in SQL Server
Security	Implicit Permissions Due to SQL Server Database Roles
Security	Is disabling xp_cmdshell in SQL Server really secure?
Security	Issues Determining an Individual SQL Server User's Permissions
Security	Migrate the Correct Logins with a SQL Server Database
Security	Nesting Database Roles in SQL Server
Security	Network communications mechanisms for SQL Server
Security	New Security Catalog Views in SQL Server 2005 and SQL 2008
Security	Ownership chaining in SQL Server security feature or security risk
Security	Potential Security Exploit Using CONTROL SERVER Permissions in SQL Server
Security	Practice of Using Privileged Accounts to Access SQL Server
Security	Protecting SQL Server from Ransomware
Security	Protecting the SQL Server Backup folder
Security	Quickly Find Failed SQL Server Logins Using the Windows Event Log
Security	Replace xp_cmdshell command line use with SQL Server Agent
Security	Retrieving SQL Server Fixed Database Roles for Disaster Recovery
Security	Retrieving SQL Server Permissions for Disaster Recovery
Security	Server level permissions for SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008
Security	Skip-2.0 Malware Impacts SQL Server - Should I Be Worried?
Security	SQL Server nested securable permissions
Security	SQL Server Permissions Granted to All Users By Default
Security	SQL Server Security Community Questions on Windows, Server Level, Database, Roles and more
Security	The Power of the SQL Server Database Owner
Security	Unable to see a SQL Server table
Security	Understanding Cross Database Ownership Chaining in SQL Server
Security	Understanding GRANT, DENY, and REVOKE in SQL Server
Security	Understanding How A User Gets Database Access in SQL Server
Security	Understanding how SQL Server handles Service Isolation
Security	Understanding SQL Server fixed database roles
Security	Understanding SQL Server fixed server roles
Security	Understanding SQL Server Ownership Chaining
Security	Understanding the importance of key length with the SQL Server asymmetric encryption algorithms
Security	Understanding the SQL Server HASHBYTES hashing algorithms
Security	Understanding the SQL Server Symmetric Encryption Algorithms
Security	Understanding When SQL Server Kerberos Delegation is Needed
Security	Using nmap to scan for SQL Servers on a network
Security	Using PowerShell to Audit for Blank SA Passwords
Security	Using Views to Expose Encrypted Data in SQL Server
Security	Why Can't I Set a Default SQL Server Schema for My Windows Group Login?
Security	Why System Account is a bad idea for SQL Server Service Account
SQL Injection	Using Triggers to Mitigate Some SQL Injection Effects
SQL Server Agent	Auditing for New SQL Server Agent Jobs
SQL Server Agent	Configuring Critical SQL Server Alerts
SQL Server Agent	Script to find failed SQL Server Backups and validate re-running code was successful
SQL Server Agent	SQL Server Agent Job Email Notifications via PowerShell
SQL Server Agent	Suppressing SQL Server Alerts to Reduce Emails
SQL Server Agent	Understanding how SQL Server Agent Jobs can share schedules
SQL Server Configurations	Catalog SQL Server Services Installed on Servers
SQL Server Configurations	How to setup and use a SQL Server alias
SQL Server Configurations	How to setup security features for SQL Server
SQL Server Configurations	Understanding the SQL Server SELECT @@VERSION command
SQL Server Configurations	Using Friendly Names for SQL Servers via DNS
SQL Server Configurations	Why listing all of your SQL Servers does not always work
Surface Area Configuration Manager	SQL Server security settings using the Surface Area Configuration tool
Surface Area Configuration Manager	SQL Server Surface Area Configuration for Features Option Selection
Triggers	Connecting to SQL Server with a Bad Logon Trigger
Triggers	SQL Server 2005 SysAdmin Login Auditing
Triggers	Understanding SQL Server inserted and deleted tables for DML triggers
TSQL	Minimum Permissions for SQL Server TRUNCATE TABLE
Views	Why You Should Avoid SELECT * in SQL Server T-SQL Code
Virtualization	Viewing VMware Counters in PerfMon for SQL Server

No Records Found

Category	Topic
Application Development	Writing efficient code for SQL Server Based Applications
Auditing and Compliance	Auditing SQL Server Using Extended Events
Auditing and Compliance	Building an Auditing Framework for SQL Server
Auditing and Compliance	Deploying and Maintaining SQL Server Configuration Standards
Auditing and Compliance	Introduction to Auditing Features in SQL Server
Auditing and Compliance	Performing a SQL Server Security Risk Assessment
Auditing and Compliance	Preparing Your SQL Servers for an Audit
Auditing and Compliance	SQL Server Data Security and Compliance
Backup	SQL Server backup automation and best practices
Database Design	Building Better Data Models
Database Design	Data Modeling Scenarios and Best Practices
Database Design	Principles of Data Modeling
Encryption	Encrypting Data with SQL Server
High Availability	WHOLE-ISTIC Protection of SQL Server in Azure
Indexing	Making the Most of Indexes in Microsoft SQL Server
Monitoring	Identify and Eliminate SQL Server Performance Issues
Performance Tuning	Improving SQL Server Queries by Reading and Understanding Execution Plans
Performance Tuning	SQL Server Performance Troubleshooting and Query Tuning
Performance Tuning	Why Are My SQL Server Queries So Slow?
Security	Building a Proper SQL Server Database Security Model
Security	Building a Successful Database Security Model
Security	Top-Down SQL Server Security
SQL Injection	Understanding SQL Injection and its Consequences
SQL Server Agent	Managing SQL Server Agent Jobs Across Your SQL Server Farm
SQL Server Agent	Troubleshooting Performance Issues with SQL Server Agent

CategoryGroup	Category (articles)
Analysis Services	Analysis Services Administration (31)
Analysis Services	Analysis Services Development (95)
Analysis Services	Analysis Services Dimensions (16)
Analysis Services	Analysis Services Measure Groups (7)
Analysis Services	Analysis Services Performance (14)
Analysis Services	Analysis Services Security (7)
Analysis Services	Analysis Services Tools (1)
Analysis Services	Analysis Services Tutorials (6)
Analysis Services	Cortana (5)
Analysis Services	Performance Point (4)
Business Intelligence	Big Data (23)
Business Intelligence	Data Warehousing (4)
Cloud	Amazon AWS (45)
Cloud	Apache Spark (3)
Cloud	Azure (187)
Cloud	Azure Backup and Restore (25)
Cloud	Azure Cosmos DB (11)
Cloud	Azure Data Factory (68)
Cloud	Azure Databricks (23)
Cloud	Azure Integration Services (14)
Cloud	Azure Synapse Analytics (35)
Cloud	Cloud Strategy (3)
Data Quality	Data Quality Services (7)
Data Quality	Master Data Services (41)
Database Administration	Availability Groups (74)
Database Administration	Backup (78)
Database Administration	Central Management Servers (9)
Database Administration	Clustering (73)
Database Administration	Comparison Data and Objects (14)
Database Administration	Compression (21)
Database Administration	Contained Databases (4)
Database Administration	Containers (12)
Database Administration	Database Administration (189)
Database Administration	Database Configurations (17)
Database Administration	Database Console Commands DBCCs (25)
Database Administration	Database Mail (18)
Database Administration	Database Mirroring (33)
Database Administration	DBA Best Practices (39)
Database Administration	Dedicated Administrator Connection (4)
Database Administration	Deprecated Features (5)
Database Administration	DevOps (34)
Database Administration	Disaster Recovery (23)
Database Administration	Error Logs (10)
Database Administration	Express Edition (16)
Database Administration	Extended Events (22)
Database Administration	FILESTREAM (9)
Database Administration	Fragmentation and Index Maintenance (27)
Database Administration	Hardware (13)
Database Administration	High Availability (3)
Database Administration	Indexing (82)
Database Administration	Install and Uninstall (32)
Database Administration	Licensing (4)
Database Administration	Linked Servers (18)
Database Administration	Locking and Blocking (38)
Database Administration	Log Shipping (18)
Database Administration	Maintenance (34)
Database Administration	Monitoring (115)
Database Administration	Other Database Platforms (69)
Database Administration	Partitioning (15)
Database Administration	Performance Data Warehouse (4)
Database Administration	Performance Tuning (121)
Database Administration	Policy Based Management (29)
Database Administration	PowerShell (128)
Database Administration	Profiler and Trace (20)
Database Administration	Query Store (7)
Database Administration	Recovery Models (4)
Database Administration	Replication (75)
Database Administration	Resource Governor (5)
Database Administration	Restore (41)
Database Administration	SQL Server 2016 (100)
Database Administration	SQL Server 2017 (44)
Database Administration	SQL Server 2019 (19)
Database Administration	SQL Server 2022 (6)
Database Administration	SQL Server Configurations (75)
Database Administration	SQL Server on Linux (76)
Database Administration	StreamInsight (2)
Database Administration	System Databases (31)
Database Administration	Upgrades and Migrations (54)
Database Administration	Virtualization (25)
Database Administration	Windows Internal Database (1)
Database Development	Application Development (36)
Database Development	Change Data Capture (15)
Database Development	Common Runtime Language (13)
Database Development	Common Table Expressions (3)
Database Development	Constraints (20)
Database Development	Data Cleansing for Validation (2)
Database Development	Data Science (3)
Database Development	Data Types (17)
Database Development	Database Design (68)
Database Development	Dates (47)
Database Development	Debugging (4)
Database Development	Dynamic Management Views and Functions (33)
Database Development	Dynamic SQL (7)
Database Development	Entity Framework (13)
Database Development	Error Handling (8)
Database Development	Full Text Search (21)
Database Development	Functions System (65)
Database Development	Functions User Defined UDF (40)
Database Development	Identities (17)
Database Development	Import and Export (76)
Database Development	In Memory OLTP (32)
Database Development	JOIN Tables (21)
Database Development	Language Integrated Query LINQ (7)
Database Development	Microsoft Access Integration (8)
Database Development	Microsoft Excel Integration (39)
Database Development	Microsoft Flow (1)
Database Development	Paging (5)
Database Development	Python (38)
Database Development	Query Optimization (14)
Database Development	Query Plans (20)
Database Development	R Language (11)
Database Development	Scripts (35)
Database Development	Service Broker (11)
Database Development	Spatial Data Storage (9)
Database Development	SQL Injection (5)
Database Development	SQL Server Management Objects SMO (3)
Database Development	Stored Procedures (27)
Database Development	Synonyms (4)
Database Development	Table Valued Parameters (4)
Database Development	Temp Tables (9)
Database Development	Temporal Tables (13)
Database Development	Testing (31)
Database Development	Transactions (8)
Database Development	Triggers (44)
Database Development	TSQL (303)
Database Development	User Defined Type UDT (3)
Database Development	Views (13)
Database Development	XML (14)
Integration Services	Data Transformation Services (5)
Integration Services	Integration Services Administration (10)
Integration Services	Integration Services Analysis Services Tasks (5)
Integration Services	Integration Services Best Practices (11)
Integration Services	Integration Services Configuration Options (21)
Integration Services	Integration Services Connection Managers (5)
Integration Services	Integration Services Control Flow Transformations (14)
Integration Services	Integration Services Data Flow Transformations (19)
Integration Services	Integration Services Development (107)
Integration Services	Integration Services Email (3)
Integration Services	Integration Services Error Handling (8)
Integration Services	Integration Services Excel (14)
Integration Services	Integration Services Execute Package Options (8)
Integration Services	Integration Services Import and Export Wizard (2)
Integration Services	Integration Services NULL Management (4)
Integration Services	Integration Services Oracle (4)
Integration Services	Integration Services Performance (12)
Integration Services	Integration Services Security (7)
Integration Services	Integration Services Upgrade (4)
Power Platform	Power Apps (17)
Power Platform	Power BI (129)
Power Platform	Power BI Charts (44)
Power Platform	Power BI Formatting (15)
Professional Development	Professional Development Books (3)
Professional Development	Professional Development Branding (13)
Professional Development	Professional Development Career (17)
Professional Development	Professional Development Career Planning (16)
Professional Development	Professional Development Career Transition (4)
Professional Development	Professional Development Certifications (47)
Professional Development	Professional Development Community (16)
Professional Development	Professional Development Conferences (2)
Professional Development	Professional Development Interview Questions BI (15)
Professional Development	Professional Development Interview Questions DBA (22)
Professional Development	Professional Development Interview Questions Developer (6)
Professional Development	Professional Development Interviewing (38)
Professional Development	Professional Development Job Search (17)
Professional Development	Professional Development Management (9)
Professional Development	Professional Development Recruiters (6)
Professional Development	Professional Development Resume (13)
Professional Development	Professional Development Skills Development (18)
Reporting Services	Reporting Services Administration (19)
Reporting Services	Reporting Services Analysis Services (4)
Reporting Services	Reporting Services Best Practices (6)
Reporting Services	Reporting Services Charts (25)
Reporting Services	Reporting Services Configuration (10)
Reporting Services	Reporting Services Custom Report (2)
Reporting Services	Reporting Services Dashboard (1)
Reporting Services	Reporting Services Data Sources (10)
Reporting Services	Reporting Services Development (37)
Reporting Services	Reporting Services Drill Through (4)
Reporting Services	Reporting Services Dynamic Reports (11)
Reporting Services	Reporting Services Filtering (3)
Reporting Services	Reporting Services Formatting (26)
Reporting Services	Reporting Services Functions (5)
Reporting Services	Reporting Services Images (2)
Reporting Services	Reporting Services Installation (9)
Reporting Services	Reporting Services KPI (5)
Reporting Services	Reporting Services Maps (4)
Reporting Services	Reporting Services Migration (5)
Reporting Services	Reporting Services Monitoring (5)
Reporting Services	Reporting Services Network Load Balancing (4)
Reporting Services	Reporting Services Overview (5)
Reporting Services	Reporting Services Parameters (15)
Reporting Services	Reporting Services Performance (6)
Reporting Services	Reporting Services Report Builder (9)
Reporting Services	Reporting Services Report Models (1)
Reporting Services	Reporting Services Security (8)
Reporting Services	Reporting Services SharePoint (1)
Reporting Services	Reporting Services Subreports (4)
Reporting Services	Reporting Services Tutorials (1)
Security	Auditing and Compliance (45)
Security	Encryption (31)
Security	Security (194)
Security	Surface Area Configuration Manager (4)
SharePoint	SharePoint (130)
SharePoint	SharePoint Administration (46)
SharePoint	SharePoint Configuration (27)
SharePoint	Sharepoint Design (46)
SharePoint	SharePoint Document Management (20)
Tools	Azure Data Studio (11)
Tools	SQL Operations Studio (11)
Tools	SQL Server Agent (92)
Tools	SQL Server Management Studio (76)
Tools	SQL Server Management Studio Configuration (22)
Tools	SQL Server Management Studio Shortcuts (9)
Tools	Tools (32)