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Maintenance plans in SQL Server give us an easy way to organize, configure, and schedule tasks that ensure that the database engine and the databases that are hosted therein are kept in shape. 

JSON is an acronym for JavaScript Object Notation, that became popular a little over seventeen years ago. JSON is essentially a data format, it was popularized by Douglas Crockford, a well-known programmer with an interesting history who was also involved in the development of JavaScript. 

As with all relational database systems, SQL Server guarantees the durability of data by implementing crash recovery. Durability in the acronym ACID which refers to the characteristics of transactions in relational databases means that we can be assured that if the database fails suddenly, our data is safe. 

With all the advancements in SQL Server and data, it feels great that such native SQL tools as Alerts and Operators are still available. They are the key SQL Server Agent features that are related to anything in SQL Server automation.  

Containerization has become the dominant topic after the Server Virtualization and Cloud Computing Eras. While many thought leaders assert that current computing paradigms are not particularly new, containerization, as we have it today, can be viewed as having been born after cloud computing. Using containers on-premise allows us to perform migration to the cloud while building a containerized environment mimics the features of solutions deployed in the cloud. 

As organisations seek more cost efficient ways to manage their environments, the demand on IT to deliver and manage shops on a tighter budget is increasing. The typical IT person must think not just about what must be done but how it must be done not only with the least administrative effort but with the least financial cost. 

Amazon AWS offers two main options for deploying SQL Server in the cloud: Elastic Compute Cloud and Relational Database Service. I recently did a few experiments with both types of instances and learnt a lot about what is and is not possible with the two options. It is worth noting that I have previously worked with MySQL on RDS and found it very satisfactory and very much like any other MySQL instance. For SQL Server, it does appear that there is some significant difference between deployments on EC2 and those on the RDS offering. 

In this article we highlight the benefits of Database Snapshots and a specific way in which the feature was of use to use in a recent service migration excercise. We shall highlight briefly the concept of Database Snapshots, general use cases and the simple process of creating and dropping a database snapshot.