SQL Server Backups and the Illusion of Safety: Confusion
October 14, 2025
With the recent data center fire and missing government data in South Korea, it felt like a good time to continue with the SQL Server Regrets series of blog posts. We’ll talk about the confusion of thinking you are covered for recoverability – when you just aren’t. This “Regret” comes up far too often when
PowerShell Splatting 101: Clean Up Your Commands
September 17, 2025
Have you ever written a PowerShell command so long that it stretched across the screen? Or had to update a script and hunt through a long parameter list to change a single value? Splatting solves that problem by letting you pass multiple parameters to a command using a single variable. What Is Splatting? Splatting allows
Deploy SQL Server With This One Script (dbatools)
September 3, 2025
In this and the next two blog posts I will be bringing diverse dbatools commands into scripts that can handle a complete deployment, do a checkup of major health and configuration metrics, and do a true up of a pre-existing instance. This post will cover the complete deployment, which if you have been reading the
Save Time On SQL Server Installs With Install-DbaInstance (dbatoools)
August 11, 2025
As DBAs we install SQL Server for various reasons regularly. If you could save time for each installation for more critical tasks, would you? In this blog post, we will audit the dbatools command Install-Dbainstance. I will test, review, and evaluate the script based on a series of identical steps. Our goal is to provide
How to Quickly Load CSV Files Into SQL Server Using Import-DbaCsv (dbatools)
July 22, 2025
Most businesses are rotten with Excel sheets and CSV exports from various tools and as my mentor puts it “Excel is the world’s database”. The dbatools command Import-DbaCsv enables the quick load of CSV tables into SQL Server, which then opens up the world of fast transformation and use in other tools such as PowerBI,
How to Automatically Install SQL Server Service Packs and Cumulative Updates with Update-DbaInstance (dbatools)
July 17, 2025
Keeping your SQL Server instance up to date with the latest service packs and cumulative updates is one of the key components of SQL Server security. In this blog post, we will audit the dbatools command Update-DbaInstance, which can save you hours every month and help keep your environment more secure. I will test, review,
Your Silent Face: The Illusion of the Safety of “Never Patching” Your SQL Servers.
July 10, 2025
No hearing, or breathing… No movement, no colors… Just silence… Sounds peaceful. Sounds serene. And in a world where entropy didn’t exist, it could even stay that way. That’s not our world, though. Our SQL Servers (in whatever flavor they exist) don’t live in utopia. They live in a world where bad actors are trying
Standardize SQL Server Maintenance Quickly and Easily Using Install-DbaMaintenanceSolution
May 14, 2025
Introduction In this blog post, we will audit the dbatools command Install-DbaMaintenanceSolution. I will test, review, and evaluate the script based on a series of identical steps. Our goal is to provide insights, warnings, and recommendations to help you use this script effectively and safely Install-DbaMaintenanceSolution is the key to simple, reliable, and comprehensive SQL
Why Invoke-DbaQuery Is My Most-Used dbatools Query
April 24, 2025
In this blog post, we will audit the dbatools command Invoke-DbaQuery. I will test, review, and evaluate the script based on a series of identical steps. Our goal is to provide insights, warnings, and recommendations to help you use this script effectively and safely. Invoke-DbaQuery is the Swiss army knife of all dbatools commands as
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