Hey Sysadmins & Integrators – Look Before You Jump Into the Next Virtualization Platform
August 5, 2026
The Broadcom acquisition of VMware pushed licensing costs up across the tech sector, forcing IT leaders and MSPs to explore alternative hypervisors. Alternatives like Proxmox, Hyper-V, Nutanix, HPE Morpheus or moving directly to cloud platforms like Azure are rapidly gaining traction as teams rush to eliminate the crazy spend Broadcom is looking for or their
It’s Still Not Your Emergency
August 4, 2026
A message hit our Teams “Lounge” channel where we talk about anything in life, sometimes work. One of our DBAs was worried about a client’s data – some rows that didn’t look the way they should look with a likely data issue, and a growing question about how far back the problem went hit her.
Settings and configurations you should never touch in SQL Server
July 13, 2026
One of my favorite movies from my youth was Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits. It’s about a young boy who gets accidentally caught up with some time-travelling thieves, who are being chased by forces of good and evil. And, without giving too much away, at the end of the movie the lead character shouts “Don’t touch
SQL Server database states for people in a panic
July 9, 2026
I’ve recently been asked by some folks about different states for SQL Server databases. Questions like “what’s the state of a database with log shipping?”, “can I fix a database in (whatever) state with a restart?”, and “which is the bad one, RECOVERY or RECOVERY PENDING?” Hopefully you don’t have to try to figure out
Workshop: PostgreSQL for the SQL Server Professional with Buck Woody and David Seis
June 30, 2026
In this workshop you’ll learn: The goal of this workshop is to train SQL Server professionals, DBAs, developers, and architects, who need to support, design, or migrate to PostgreSQL workloads. The concepts and skills taught in this workshop form the starting points for:
RC4 Is Going Away in July 2026: What CVE-2026-20833 Means for Your SQL Server and Windows Environment
June 23, 2026
In July 2026 Microsoft is making a change that may impact your environment. The change being implemented will make your environment more secure by no longer accepting the RC4 algorithm for the Kerberos protocol by default. The problem though is it could cause authentication failures, services to not start, and Kerberos to stop working. Microsoft
Session: 7 Simple Strategies to Combat Imposter Syndrome with Amy Abel
June 19, 2026
Throughout my career as a database professional, I have learned that technical skills are only part of the equation. Many of the biggest obstacles we face are the stories we tell ourselves questions like “Am I good enough?” or “Do I really belong here?” Imposter syndrome can limit our confidence, decision-making, and career growth, even
Session: Creative GitHub Strategies for the Modern Database Professional with Amy Abel
June 18, 2026
Session: Defending Your SQL Server – Practical Strategies against Ransomware with Jeff Iannucci
June 15, 2026
I’ve presented different versions of this session for a few years now, and I’ll keep giving it as long as ransomware keeps affecting so many organizations. There are a number of troubling default setting in SQL Server, as well as some commonly seen practices that can unintentionally result in attack vectors. I want to help
SQL Server Best Practices: A Practitioner’s Guide
March 17, 2026
Changelog: March 2026 – Initial publication This is a living document. Next up: SQL Server Best Practices are not Universal Aside from maybe autoshrink, not all SQL Server “best practices” are always applicable to all. But some are. And we find them misconfigured on almost every new server we touch. After 15 years of managing