Rob Sewell

Rob was a SQL Server DBA with a passion for Powershell, Azure, Automation, and SQL (PaaS geddit?). Now he just helps people. He is a Cloud and Data Center MVP and a Data Platform MVP, an officer for the PASS DevOps Virtual Chapter, co-leader of Data South West and PSConf EU organiser and has spoken at and volunteered at many Data and PowerShell events all over the world. He is a proud supporter of the Data and Powershell communities.

He relishes sharing and learning and can be found doing both via Twitter and his blog. He spends most of his time looking at a screen and loves to solve problems. He knows that looking at a screen so much is bad for him because his wife tells him so. Thus, you can find him on the cricket field in the summer and flying a drone in the winter.

He has a fabulous beard

Twitter: @@SQLDbaWithBeard
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/robsewellsqldba

Using Docker to run Integration Tests for dbachecks

by Rob Sewell

SQL DBA With A Beard

My wonderful friend André Kamman wrote a fantastic blog post this week SQL Server Container Instances via Cloudshell about how...

2019-02-06 (first published: 2019-01-19)

2,272 reads

Running Windows and Linux SQL Containers together

by Rob Sewell

SQL DBA With A Beard

Just for fun I decided to spend Christmas Eve getting Windows and Linux SQL containers running together.

WARNING
This is NOT a...

2019-01-04 (first published: 2018-12-24)

1,882 reads

SQL Server Availability Group FailoverDetection Utility PowerShell Function Improvements – Named Instances, Archiving Data, Speed

by Rob Sewell

SQL DBA With A Beard

In my last post I wrote about a new function for gathering the data and running the FailoverDetection utility by...

2018-12-19 (first published: 2018-12-01)

1,863 reads

Gathering all the Logs and Running the Availability Group Failover Detection Utility with PowerShell

by Rob Sewell

SQL DBA With A Beard

30/11/2018 – Function has been updated to deal with named instances.
Last week the Tiger Team released their Availability Group Failover Detection...

2018-12-17 (first published: 2018-11-28)

1,992 reads

Getting the SQL Version from a backup using dbatools ………. on PowerShell Core

by Rob Sewell

SQL DBA With A Beard

Following an upgrade to SQL Server the backup share had a number of backups, some from the old version and...

2018-12-12 (first published: 2018-11-26)

1,723 reads

Getting SQL Services, Starting, Stopping and Restarting them with dbatools

by Rob Sewell

SQL DBA With A Beard

There was a question in the #dbatools slack channel

Getting dbatools
dbatools enables you to administer SQL Server with PowerShell. To get...

2018-12-03

330 reads

PASS Summit, SQLTrain and My First US SQL Saturday

by Rob Sewell

SQL DBA With A Beard

Next week is the week when I used to dread looking at Twitter and especially the #PASSsummit hashtag, watching all of...

2018-10-31

262 reads

Checking Trace Flags with dbachecks, online docs and PSPowerHour

by Rob Sewell

SQL DBA With A Beard

It’s been a few weeks since i have blogged as I have been busy with a lot of other things....

2018-10-10 (first published: 2018-09-29)

1,955 reads

Deploying To a Power Bi Report Server with PowerShell

by Rob Sewell

SQL DBA With A Beard

Just a quick post to share some code that I used to solve a problem I had recently.
I needed to...

2018-09-04 (first published: 2018-08-21)

5,852 reads

A PowerShell Conference In A Book

by Rob Sewell

SQL DBA With A Beard

A Question
Shortly after the European PowerShell Conference and the PowerShell and Devops 2018 summit in the USA Mike Robbins b...

2018-08-17 (first published: 2018-08-01)

2,744 reads

Blogs

Moving On-Prem PostgreSQL to the Cloud: Picking the Right Path for Big Tables

By Eduardo Pivaral

Every PostgreSQL migration eventually hits the same fork in the road. The database is...

A Spread of Vacation

I’m off on vacation today. Which is a little weird as I just got...

How AgentDBA Identifies Backup Failures

Every DBA has a box like this. Sitting untouched for months. Nobody’s proud of...

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Independence Day 2026

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

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Question of the Day

Independence Day 2026

In the original Independence Day movie (1996), what type of computer did Jeff Goldblum use to connect to the alien mainframe? Take a guess, don't look it up or ask AI.

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