Essential Database Maintenance Tasks Every DBA Should Know

sql server maintenance tasks every dba sould know

Database maintenance is a critical aspect of the DBA role, ensuring the smooth operation of SQL Server environments. In this blog post, we will explore key tasks and areas of focus for SQL Server DBAs, accompanied by practical tips and insights gained from our experience. From backup and recovery to performance optimization and security, let’s … Read more

Make SQL Server Database Restores Easy With sp_DatabaseRestore

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If you’ve read the Straight Path blog for any period of time, you’ve probably noticed more than a few posts about database backups. You may have also noticed we’re big fans of the Ola Hallengren Maintenance Solution for backups, which creates stored procedures and jobs to handle your regular backups. These scripts and jobs are … Read more

How to Setup a Standalone SSRS Server As Part of an Availability Group

How to Setup a Standalone SSRS Server As Part of an Availability Group

SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) is a useful tool that can be installed on a standalone server (a license is required), or it can be installed on an existing SQL Server host (this shares the existing license of SQL Server). This blog post covers how SSRS is installed on a standalone server and how to … Read more

The Curious Case of THREADPOOL Waits

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Featured image photo by alexey turenkov on Unsplash A client reached out for help with a performance problem that had been going on for over a day. The application was performing so slowly that it was nearly an outage to their users. I love working on production emergencies where there’s a severe performance problem. I … Read more

How UNsafe Is Your SQL Server? – Vulnerability Assessment and Access Audit

SQL Server is a repository of critical data, attracting potential threats from malicious individuals seeking financial gains. As a SQL Server DBA, it is essential to assess the security vulnerabilities of your SQL Server and perform an access audit to ensure the safety of your data SQL Server Vulnerability Scan I recommend you start with … Read more

How to Enable Transparent Data Encryption for Databases in Your Availability Group

Transparent data encryption is the built-in method for at-rest data encryption in SQL Server. Taking steps towards security has always been important, but it is becoming even more important every day as there is a looming cyber threat industry hungry for easy high-profit data. We should also remember that not all threats are from the … Read more

How to Provision a Low-Cost SQL 2022 Testing Lab

This month we will be covering some features in SQL 2022. Specifically, I will create a new SQL 2022 Development instance and connect it to Azure Arc. Azure Arc is not primarily for SQL 2022, but connecting it to on-premises and cross-cloud SQL servers is a very useful skill to have for managing hybrid environments, … Read more