SQLwatch.io as a Free Monitoring Tool for Your SQL Servers: A Jr. DBA Review
February 9, 2023
I have been working for Straight Path for a while, and I have grown comfortable with the monitoring tools we use and what we look for on a daily basis. I thought I would branch during our second “Community Tools Month” and try out SQLWatch since it is a free community tool designed to help … Read more
5 common Problems to Troubleshoot with sp_WhoIsActive in SQL Server
January 31, 2023
If there were a Mount Rushmore of SQL Server community tools, Adam Machanic would have to be one of the four faces. You may not know his name, but you more than likely know the free troubleshooting tool he created over a decade ago: sp_WhoIsActive. Fix your performance problems, fix your blocking, fix a bunch. … Read more
SQL Server Maintenance With Ola Hallengren’s Maintenance Solution.
January 12, 2023
Perspective from a Junior DBA. Welcome to our month of community tool blog posts! We will discuss some of our favorite and most used tools and how we use them in the coming weeks. Our first post is on Ola Hallengren’s SQL Server maintenance solution. For some, this will be old news; this will be … Read more
6 Common Mistakes Made With SQL Server Backups
December 12, 2022
People are always saying things about the importance of data, like how it is the lifeblood of a business. It sounds cliché, but there’s a lot of truth to that. You and I can’t survive without any blood, and there’s a good chance your business wouldn’t exist for long if they suddenly lost all their … Read more
SQL Server Upgrade/Migration Webinar
December 9, 2022
This month’s webinar ws all about SQL Server upgrades and migration. We covered the following topics: This topic is part of our monthly SQL Server webinar series. Webinar registrants get access to the entire recording, which includes the office hours Q&A. Check out the videos from the webinar series: Introduction Transcript Mike WalshSo hello, welcome … Read more
High Availability and Disaster Recovery With SQL Server Standard Edition
December 8, 2022
There are many ways to setup High Availability and Disaster Recovery, most of which are focused on SQL Server Enterprise edition. However, the licensing for Enterprise edition gets costly fast. One less talked about approach to building a cost-effective HA/DR solution is building a failover cluster instance using SQL Server Standard with SIOS Datakeeper. SQL … Read more
Books and Covers…
December 5, 2022
Believe me, every heart has its secret sorrows, which the world knows not, and oftentimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad. Longfellow, Hyperion (1839) This post has been rattling around in my head for several years. Of late, though, the rattling has turned into a steady vibration. The day before I … Read more
HA/DR Troubleshooting from a Jr. DBA
December 1, 2022
Availability groups, Failover Clusters, Log Shipping, and more. These are tools we use to ensure that the data is highly available and disaster recoverable. This post will be the general walkthrough for how to determine what may be going wrong with your HA/DR solution, as well as some general tips and tricks from what we … Read more
6 Common Pitfalls of SQL Server Migrations and Upgrades
November 30, 2022
If you’ve ever tried migrating a SQL Server database from one server to another, you know it can be a white-knuckle ride from start to finish. You need to wait forever while you backup and restore, change all your connection strings to point to the new server, and forget to change the data sources for … Read more
SQL Server HA/DR Webinar
November 29, 2022
On Tuesday, 12/13/22, we presented a webinar about HA/DR (high availability and disaster recovery). Join Team Straight Path as we discuss what HA is, what DR is, and how they are different. We talked about the ways to achieve HA and DR. We’ll talk about the things we’ve learned about HA and DR along the … Read more