Read EngineEdition with edition and version properties, select platform-aware diagnostics, and avoid treating an engine family as a license.
Automated Restore Tests: Proving Backups Work Every Week
Schedule restore tests that select current backups, move files to an isolated server, run CHECKDB, record failures, and rotate databases.
Writing a Disaster Recovery Runbook: RPO, RTO and a Restore Test
Build a disaster recovery runbook around agreed RPO and RTO, usable backup chains, instance dependencies, clear roles, and restore tests.
Listing Last Night’s Failed Agent Jobs With One msdb Query
List failed Agent jobs and steps from msdb history, include retries and cancellations, and account for local times and trimmed records.
Understanding Your Customer: Listen Before You Fix
Understanding your customer is the first step of consulting and DBA work. This post uses one plumber metaphor to show why a fix needs an explanation, why hearing is not listening, how a scoping call helps and why the plain tool beats the fancy one.
Reading the system_health File Target With Plain T-SQL
Locate the system_health file target, read its retained events with T-SQL, and inspect serious errors, connectivity records and waits.
SQL Server Audit: Tracking Who Read or Changed Sensitive Tables
Configure SQL Server Audit for reads and changes, inspect file records by user and time, and plan retention and target failures.