Curious Case of SQL Server Shutting Down Whenever a Job Runs.
October 17, 2025
This is a post in our new Case of the Week series — short write-ups from the real SQL Server issues our team of 17 SQL Server experts helps clients solve every day. Case of the Week: . Quick Summary A client reported that their SQL Server service was “randomly shutting down”. They would restart … Read more
Updates and improvements to sp_CheckSecurity
October 15, 2025
It’s been a while since we made some improvements to the public version of sp_CheckSecurity, but internally we’ve been busy fine tuning checks and adding even more to discover potential vulnerabilities in your SQL Server instances. Today we’re announcing a new version that includes additions, corrections, and a few other adjustments that should be helpful. … Read more
SQL Just Stops When Running OPENROWSET Query
October 15, 2025
Sometimes people install Office onto a SQL Server to get the drivers for the ability to import data from Excel into SQL Server Tables. This should never be done on a production, or any, server because it can cause many other problems for SQL, one of which is the purpose of this blog. For example, … Read more
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 … Read more
SQL Server Partition Management Job Failure After Migration to Availability Group.
October 10, 2025
This is the first post in our new Case of the Week series — short write-ups from the real SQL Server issues our team of 17 SQL Server experts helps clients solve every day. Case of the Week: SQL Server Partition Job Failure after Migration from AWS FCI to AWS AG. Quick Summary A client … Read more
Joining Straight Path Solutions as Chief Data Officer
October 10, 2025
Recently, I announced that after almost 20 years at Microsoft, I was moving to a new company and role. I’ve been in the Information Technology industry for over 40 years, and I believe that experience, combined with the various companies, organizations, and roles I have held, has led me to this place. Why Straight Path … Read more
The Age of Data Advocates Has Begun
October 7, 2025
I watched Bob Ward demo vector search in SQL Server at the NYC PASS road show in late August, and I have a confession that I’m not proud of. I felt that little knot in my stomach that every DBA knows too well. His pre-recorded PowerPoint videos typed a few commands, asked questions in natural … Read more
Our Next Chapter – Welcoming Buck Woody and Launching CDO as a Service
October 6, 2025
You can also read from Buck in his own words in this post, published here. “Oh, hi, don’t mind us – we’re just having a little conversation about SQL Server. I’m so glad you can join us. There are seats up front here…” That was the first time I ever heard words from Buck Woody … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more