We Sell Green Checkmarks

Expert SQL Server Consulting

Straight Path’s 17 FTEs are SQL Server consultants – many with 20-30 years of experience. Offering Microsoft SQL Server database troubleshooting, monitoring and maintenance, migrations, and upgrades from small businesses to large enterprises. SQL Server consulting is our full-time job – this isn’t a side gig or a one-person show.

We Sell Green Checkmarks

Our consultants are SQL Server experts who can solve your SQL Server problems and keep them from coming back.

“Database management has never been this easy. The Straight Path team is full of SQL Server database gurus who can help you speed it up, sort it out or set it up right. Client satisfaction has increased because problems are solved and workflows are positively impacted. As a result, I am sleeping like a baby knowing our databases are being watched and managed diligently by our SQL Server consulting team. I don’t know what we’d do without them.”

Dean Tammam, Red Key Solutions

SQL Server Consulting Services

DBA as a Service

Remote, senior DBAs and SQL Server consultants are on your team, not your payroll. 15-minute P1 SLA. Priced per hour, not by instance.

Read More

Cloud

We can plan and execute your move to the cloud. We can optimize your costs.

Read More

Upgrades

Expert, painless, set-it-and-forget-it SQL Server upgrades.

Read More

sp_check – Free SQL Server Resources

Our SQL Server consultants have developed a set of community tools that help keep your SQL Server secure and healthy. They’re free, easy to use, and ungated. We use them in our own consulting engagements – you can use them also.

Learn More

Bizarre Love Triangle (Sysadmins, AV tools and DBAs)

“Every time I think of you, I feel shot right through with a bolt of blue…” – If your SQL Servers (and especially your SQL Server Availability Groups and Failover Cluster instances) could speak – that’s what they’d say about the times your security and sysadmin teams deploy a new AV tool without talking to … Read more

PASS Call for Speakers (…and my answer to that call)

I was in a company offsite meeting yesterday so I missed the fanfare on twitter and the blogosphere about the opening of the call for speakers. Brent Ozar blogged about it, Thomas LaRock blogged about it… Countless others on my blogroll also blogged about it. The bottom line is go to the PASS speaker resources … Read more

Checklists, Recipes and Algorithms

What do checklists, recipes or algorithms have to do with Database Administration? A lot… If we study a few career paths we can see how a checklist or process flow  makes their lives easier. I love stealing ideas from everyday life, working them into something useful for my DBA career and I think we have … Read more

Analysis Services Command Job Step Failure

Just uncovered an already reported and fixed (in SQL Server 2008) bug with Analysis Services job steps reporting success even if your MDX or XMLA in the step failed. The troubleshooting that worked up to the issue also reiterates points I made when discussing troubleshooting methodologies and empirical evidence. The Problem Some changes were made … Read more

Where do I start?!?!

As a SQL Server DBA, where do I start? So you are a new DBA. Maybe you are someplace that hasn’t had a DBA, maybe you are someplace that didn’t have a great DBA. Requests are piling up, your head is spinning with the instances you are discovering and people are getting excited that there … Read more