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.

Presenting – What I’ve Learned

December 10, 2020December 9, 2020 by Mike Walsh

So I totally missed the boat on a GREAT T-SQL Tuesday topic – “What’s something you’ve learned while presenting?” But with a twist – something technical, you’ve learned that you didn’t learn. Well, mine is a bit embarrassing… I’ll share that. Also – I totally skimmed the topic and some of the post titles. I … Read more

The Sound of Silence

December 10, 2020December 6, 2020 by Mike Walsh

Oops. I missed a blog post yesterday (Saturday). In fairness, I spent the night running around in the first snowstorm of the season trying to get ready for it (somehow caught off guard – again – by the first storm.) We had to move our cows around and deal with some limbs down and a … Read more

On Intentionality and Making Paths

December 10, 2020December 4, 2020 by Mike Walsh

Yes. I’m writing a short blog post about a simple topic. At least simple at first glance. There’s a certain irony in this being the post topic I’m writing about tonight. You see, I set out a goal for myself in December – write a blog post every day. At some point, try and write … Read more

“Are you Overpaying for SQL Server Licensing” Webinar Recap

December 10, 2020December 3, 2020 by Mike Walsh

Earlier this week, SIOS invited me to join them in a webinar over at MSSQL tips. You can watch the webinar recording if you register for it in “OnDemand” mode on their site here. Dave Bermingham joined me on the webinar – he’s a great technologist and a long time Microsoft MVP in cloud and … Read more

VMware and SQL Server Best Practices.

March 6, 2021December 2, 2020 by Mike Walsh

I wish you knew a few things about VMware and SQL Server best practices. If you’ve ever asked yourself “Why does my storage seem slower on my SQL Server VMs?!”, this post may help. We love VMware in our SQL Server consulting practice. But there are some things you should know and do first. These … Read more

SQL Server: Standard vs Enterprise Edition

March 6, 2022December 1, 2020 by Mike Walsh

Do you need SQL Server Enterprise Edition? Maybe. Maybe not. This blog post will help you figure out if you can make the move from SQL Server Enterprise Edition to SQL Server Standard. Lately, we’ve been finding more and more folks who can answer that probably not. I’ve lost track of the number of clients … Read more

Cluster Validation – BEWARE!!!

March 6, 2021June 27, 2020 by Mike Walsh

Subtitle: SHAME ON YOU MICROSOFT! This is not a new behavior. It’s not a new risk. It’s the same old risk that’s been in Windows Failover Clustering for quite some time. But it’s worse for SQL Server environments that use a Windows failover cluster for an Availability Group – since you are not sharing storage … Read more