Mike Walsh

Mike loves mentoring clients on the right Systems or High Availability architectures because he enjoys those lightbulb moments and loves watching the right design and setup come together for a client. He loves the architecture talks about the cloud - and he's enjoying building a Managed SQL Server DBA practice that is growing while maintaining values and culture. He started Straight Path in 2010 when he decided that after over a decade working with SQL Server in various roles, it was time to try and take his experience, passion, and knowledge to help clients of all shapes and sizes. Mike is a husband, and father to four great children and lives in the middle of nowhere NH.

SQL Server 2016 Standard – Your Cake. You Can Eat it too.

February 7, 2020November 16, 2016 by Mike Walsh

SQL Server Standard with Enterprise Features - Your cake. Eat it too.

Today Microsoft just made a huge announcement. All of the features you can build into your databases in SQL Server (well the vast majority at least) are no longer just included in Enterprise Editions. There are some exceptions… But the main point here is – you can be on SQL Server Standard – and you can use … Read more

We’re (officially) Working with Tyleris Data Solutions

February 7, 2020October 24, 2016 by Mike Walsh

As my friend and fellow SQL Server MVP, Tim Mitchell pointed out in a blog post today – our companies are working together in a strategic way. Our clients should benefit from this relationship in a few ways. I wanted to chat about that here and why I’m excited about it. We’ve actually been working … Read more

PASS Summit – PASS Prayers – 8th Year

October 24, 2016 by Mike Walsh

Quick note: From time to time I blog about the Bible here. I try to keep those posts on my personal blog – Open Mike – but sometimes it makes sense for a quick cross post over here. I always tag those posts with the Bible category and you are free to read or ignore … Read more

SQL Sentry Plan Explorer [Free DBA Tool of The Week]

February 7, 2020August 5, 2016 by Mike Walsh

In this continuing series, I’m blogging about Free tools for SQL Server DBAs. You can check the whole series out, here. This week we’re talking about and old standard – SQL Sentry Plan Explorer. SQL Sentry Plan Explorer I hope you look at SQL Server execution plans. If you do this in management studio using … Read more

A Shirt. A Conference. A Village

February 7, 2020August 1, 2016 by Mike Walsh

Fair warning. I’m in a sentimental mood. I’m tired. I’m caffeinated. I have my “nice headphones” on listening to my eclectic collection on shuffle but somehow it turned into “With or Without You” from U2 on repeat a few times. . . And I just went to change into bedtime clothes. I tried to put on the rattiest … Read more

SQL Server First Responder Kit [Free DBA Tool of the Week]

February 7, 2020July 20, 2016 by Mike Walsh

I can’t do a series on free SQL Server DBA tools without including the SQL Server First Responder Kit put out by Brent Ozar and his company (and the SQL Family who helped)! This is that post. A couple weeks ago, I was inspired to start this blog series because of an amazing PowerShell module … Read more

Create a SQL Server Baseline with the PAL Tool

February 7, 2020July 18, 2016 by Mike Walsh

Calibrate your budget and resources with a good SQL Server baseline

When we do a SQL Server Health Assessment, we quickly dive into SQL Server performance and Windows/Physical/Virtual resource usage counters. During our kick off interview we always ask if you have a SQL Server baseline from the past to compare. Usually the answer is no, unfortunately. Like monitoring and alerting, many of the tools vendors make automated baseline collection tools. Also like alerting, though, … Read more