Bizarre Love Triangle (Sysadmins, AV tools and DBAs)
March 25, 2025
“Every time I think of you, I feel shot right through with a bolt of blue…” – If your SQL Servers (and especially your SQL Server Availability Groups and Failover Cluster instances) could speak – that’s what they’d say about the times your security and sysadmin teams deploy a new AV tool without talking to
Blue Monday: Not for Your SQL Servers!
March 20, 2025
Monday morning: you’re back at work, but your SQL Server estate had a weekend from hell. Some companies find that out the hard way—every single Monday.It’s almost like SQL Server is taunting you, “How does it feel to treat me like you do?” I See a Ship in the Harbor (Do you watch for SQL
Regret (SQL Server Edition)
March 19, 2025
Maybe I’ve forgotten the name and the address of every patient I’ve helped throughout my years in EMS back when I was still involved, but there’s one thing I know: quite a few would say hindsight is 20/20. The older I get, the more I see how often this pattern repeats. Whether it was the
On Mentoring: A T-SQL Tuesday post
March 11, 2025
Deborah Melkin is hosting the community T-SQL Tuesday #184 carnival of blog posts. Her topic is one that is near and dear to her – and also near and dear to us here at Straight Path – Mentoring and Sponsorships. I am really looking forward to reading all of the posts this topic generates. Deb
Evaluating SQL Server Managed Service Providers.
March 9, 2025
For full disclosure – this is the business we are in here at Straight Path IT Solutions. We know something about running a SQL Server Managed Services practice. While we’d love to talk to you and work with us, there are a lot of excellent firms out there like our friends at Dallas DBAs, Procure
SQL Server Security: 3 Homework Assignments to Start Today
June 30, 2024
This post is part of our SQL Server security blog series, 30 SQL Server Security Checks in 30 Days. We’re publishing a new security check every day in the month of June. Visit our sp_CheckSecurity page to learn about our free SQL Server tool you can download and run to check your own server. Thanks
SQL Injection: Deconstructing an Attack
June 29, 2024
This post is part of our SQL Server security blog series, 30 SQL Server Security Checks in 30 Days. We’re publishing a new security check every day in the month of June. Visit our sp_CheckSecurity page to learn about our free SQL Server tool you can download and run to check your own server. As
5 Key Backup Strategies for Unbeatable SQL Server Security
June 19, 2024
This post is part of our SQL Server security blog series, 30 SQL Server Security Checks in 30 Days. We’re publishing a new security check every day in the month of June. Visit our sp_CheckSecurity page to learn about our free SQL Server tool you can download and run to check your own server. There
SQL Server Security: Best Practices with CLR
June 18, 2024
This post is part of our SQL Server security blog series, 30 SQL Server Security Checks in 30 Days. We’re publishing a new security check every day in the month of June. Visit our sp_CheckSecurity page to learn about our free SQL Server tool you can download and run to check your own server. What
Building a Consultancy: More Principles
February 26, 2024
A couple of weeks ago, I started blogging about part of the journey of creating our SQL Server Consulting firm. I may someday work on more posts on the journey from full-time DBA to doing some side work to leaving with an “anchor client” to going off on my own (and my adventures with Linchpin