Risks? I’ve Taken a Few
March 10, 2026
I still remember the time I got in a shouting match with my HS biology teacher… “You’re never going to amount to anything – I don’t even know why you are in this class – you should work more hours and drop out already…” He was a bit of a hot head so when I … Read more
Call Dig Safe Before You Start Your AI Project
March 10, 2026
I’m about to save our company 2 hours a month in invoice processing and renewal checks… So far, I’ve “only” invested 80 of my own hours into working with Claude Code, and I’m not halfway there yet. I alternate from excitement and amazement to horror and depression every other build, test, and commit. I keep … Read more
When Software Runs Slow Is it the Vendor or the Customer? (“Yes” probably…)
March 9, 2026
I’ve lost track of the number of long term clients we have at Straight Path who started out with “It’s the vendor’s fault! They had the nerve to tell me my servers weren’t running great!” or “Our environment is perfect, it’s this (ERP/CRM/eDiscovery/Integration/etc.) software we installed that is just running like garbage!” True to human … Read more
Why Ola Hallengren’s DatabaseBackup Silently Skipped a Database
March 6, 2026
Quick Summary A database in an Availability Group was being silently skipped by Ola Hallengren’s DatabaseBackup stored procedure with no error and no entry in the output file. We caught this in our daily health check review we do making sure clients are recoverable, safe, and running in a best configuration. After some digging, the culprit turned out to … Read more
Updates for all sp_Check tools – February 2026
February 28, 2026
It’s been very humbling to get so much encouraging feedback about our sp_Check tools from so many of you, especially for our latest tool sp_CheckAG. What started with a new security check tool (sp_CheckSecurity) has grown to four publicly released tools (including sp_CheckBackup and sp_CheckTempdb) that can help SQL Server professionals with both troubleshooting and … Read more
SQL Server Untrusted Domain Login Error When NTLM Is Blocked and SPNs Aren’t Registered
February 27, 2026
We were setting up a brand-new SQL Server 2022 instance and couldn’t connect remotely using valid Windows credentials. Every attempt gave us the same error: “Login is from an untrusted domain and cannot be used with Windows authentication.” The client only has one domain. Permissions and firewalls checked out. Local connections with domain accounts worked … Read more
Psst: “Vibe Ops” Isn’t a Thing…
February 27, 2026
I was maybe 12 years old the first time I really smelled ozone. Not from a thunderstorm. From a Radio Shack 200-in-1 electronics kit… the kind with the spring terminals and the little instruction booklet that made you feel like a real engineer. I forgot what I was supposed to be building, maybe a lap … Read more
The Clock Is Running: Decision Latency
February 26, 2026
There is a metric hiding in plain sight inside every enterprise data organization, and in my experience, few organizations track it. It’s not a pipeline metric, not a data quality score, and it certainly does not show up on the standard dashboards. It’s the gap between the moment someone in your organization recognizes they need … Read more
Life moves pretty fast…
February 21, 2026
I went to Harvard Business School executive education at the end of January, expecting to come home with a list of tactics. Where am I leaking efficiencies? What strategy have I messed up all of these years? What’s the one thing that will change everything? The case study in my head sounded something like, “How … Read more
How to Choose a SQL Server Managed Service Provider
February 20, 2026
By Mike Walsh | February 20, 2026 When we talk to marketing folks, one piece of advice is to write a “top ten” list post and set us up as number 1, and then explain why our competition is okay but not as good as us. I’m not going to do that. Not because I don’t think … Read more