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
Speaking at PASS Summit On Tour: NYC
August 18, 2025
I’ll be speaking on Tuesday, 8/19, at the PASS Summit on tour in New York City. I’ll be giving a talk in the “professional development” world this time.. And I’ll be doing the same session at the PASS Summit in Seattle this fall. This time, rather than talk about SQL Server DBA tips, upgrades, migrations, … Read more
You Don’t Understand Negligence, Your SQL Server Version Told Me…
August 15, 2025
When I was in the world of EMS, you rarely started a course for the next level of license without a chapter or two on the legal side. They hammered negligence into us — what it takes to lose in court on a negligence lawsuit. It’s the same thing in IT.And here’s what you don’t … Read more
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 … Read more
Updates and improvements to sp_CheckBackup
July 28, 2025
Since we introduced sp_CheckBackup last year we’ve gotten some great feedback on ways to improve this tool that helps you quickly and easily review the backup history for your SQL Server databases. We’ve even noticed a few things ourselves that we wanted to change as we used it more internally here at Straight Path Solutions. … Read more
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, … Read more
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, … Read more