Estimate row and page compression savings per index and partition, then compare storage, CPU, reads, and maintenance before deployment.
Do You Need an Availability Group? Matching RPO and RTO to a Feature
Match RPO and RTO to backups, log shipping, failover clusters, or availability groups, then test the full service recovery path.
Telling Which Platform You Run On With SERVERPROPERTY EngineEdition
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.