David Seis

How to Enable Transparent Data Encryption for Databases in Your Availability Group

Transparent data encryption is the built-in method for at-rest data encryption in SQL Server. Taking steps towards security has always been important, but it is becoming even more important every day as there is a looming cyber threat industry hungry for easy high-profit data. We should also remember that not all threats are from the … Read more

How to Provision a Low-Cost SQL 2022 Testing Lab

This month we will be covering some features in SQL 2022. Specifically, I will create a new SQL 2022 Development instance and connect it to Azure Arc. Azure Arc is not primarily for SQL 2022, but connecting it to on-premises and cross-cloud SQL servers is a very useful skill to have for managing hybrid environments, … Read more

SQLwatch.io as a Free Monitoring Tool for Your SQL Servers: A Jr. DBA Review

SQLwatch review - free monitoring tool - review by jr DBA

I have been working for Straight Path for a while, and I have grown comfortable with the monitoring tools we use and what we look for on a daily basis. I thought I would branch during our second “Community Tools Month” and try out SQLWatch since it is a free community tool designed to help … Read more

SQL Server Maintenance With Ola Hallengren’s Maintenance Solution.

Ola maintenance for sql server databases

Perspective from a Junior DBA. Welcome to our month of community tool blog posts! We will discuss some of our favorite and most used tools and how we use them in the coming weeks. Our first post is on Ola Hallengren’s SQL Server maintenance solution. For some, this will be old news; this will be … Read more

HA/DR Troubleshooting from a Jr. DBA

Availability groups, Failover Clusters, Log Shipping, and more. These are tools we use to ensure that the data is highly available and disaster recoverable. This post will be the general walkthrough for how to determine what may be going wrong with your HA/DR solution, as well as some general tips and tricks from what we … Read more

SQL Server Migration Considerations from a Jr. DBA

SQL Server migrations are a necessary and expected part of keeping a modern SQL Server deployment. We have worked with many clients on migration projects, and I have organized some considerations for you and your team before, during, and after your SQL Server migration. We recommend working with a SQL server DBA on these kinds … Read more