That would be my approach, but management doesn't always support that. And if management doesn't agree with that, then the DevOps process fails.

That's most of my point about people. Both...

I think you just proved my point that this...

Definitely a problem these days. Had to get staff...

Nope, fixing that

The car analogy is a good one In general, a 20 (or 30) year old car does what a current one does. Get you from place to place. Most of...

The case against patching (of SQL Server CUs) is that all databases are updated with a single thread during the CU update process, during which the SQL Server is...

Thanks for the article Steve.

...

I've worked with DBA's who dragged their feet on patching every...single...month and couldn't get IT management to support me on patching. So again, less technical...

An update every 30 minutes is a bit much, but depends on the situation. If I'm with a real time system, then I might want this. Certainly I've had incident...

Self interest.

If I'm talking to you, I ask you. what if you upset your boss tomorrow and he/she let you go? What do you do? How easy is it to...

Same. It really requires someone that cares and empathizes with what people see on the outside. And support from management to be more transparent, even if not detailed.

The cert backup isn't protected by the master key. The cert is.

The backup is protected by a password when you run it.

Should have a backup of the cert periodically.

I don't worry about the SMK, as this can be overridden, so it's more if you plan to restore this exact server setup...

You shouldn't. ALTER MASTER KEY WITH REGENERATE should decrypt the protection on the cert and then re-encrypt it with the new key. The cert protects the DEK, which isn't something...

I think that is the genesis of this trend.

However, doing both can help your career, especially...

Engineer is protected in many places, but not sure that's slowed the use of this as a title for a position rather than a certification.

At least not in the US.