Posts Categorized: Best Practices

Create a SQL Server Baseline with the PAL Tool

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

kCura’s k-rad Idea & A Vendor Doing SQL Better

k-rad.. K  From kilobyte.. A thousand.. A thousand times Rad.. Back when a 40MB hard drive was perhaps average or maybe around the time of those big 1.6GB hard drives, it meant “really cool”.. Maybe today it would ex-rad or p-rad. Anyway. There’s a reason for this trip down BBS or mIRC memory lane.. We’ll get … Read more

Hey DBA Managers, Don’t Be Like the Secret Service!

Continuing from yesterday’s advice to DBAs…  Three Four (hey it’s for managers, brownie points…) lessons for management from the Secret Service “issues”.   Trust But Verify At the White House “upper management” at Secret Service didn’t realize how bad things were with recent lapses. At least I hope they didn’t and I’m going to assume they … Read more

More Soft Skills From The Ambulance

A couple days ago I posted some of the lessons I learned in the back of an ambulance that have translated into my career as a SQL Server Consultant or a DBA. I promised I had a few more.  Here they are. “I Don’t Know What You’ve Been Through” Empathy. My friend Tom LaRock wrote an … Read more