Coping with Infrastructure Upgrades
A common topic for questions on SQL Server forums is how to plan and implement upgrades to SQL Server. Moving from old to new hardware or moving from one version of SQL Server to another. There are other circumstances where upgrades of other systems affect SQL Server DBAs.
Deployment Failures
Today Steve Jones talks about deployment and how well it can work. He also asks about the problems from you and how easily it can fail.
Disaster In The Real World - #2
Back in April Steve Jones wrote up a disaster at work. Andy had one this week and wrote up the story too. Copy cat! Pretty soon everyone will be having a disaster and writing a story about it! Give these guys credit for letting you see what happens when it ALL goes bad. Disaster recovery is hard to sell and hard to do, reading the article might give you an idea that will save you some time and/or data one day.
Disaster Recovery Week
This week we highlight the practice of being prepared for disasters at SQLServerCentral.
Database Deployment Cribsheet
As part of Simple-Talk's long-running Cribsheet series, they asked William Brewer to write a guide to deployment that described in general terms what is involved in the deployment of a database application, and the sort of issues you're likely to come up against.
Planning for Disaster
There is a certain paradox in being advised to expect the unexpected, but the DBA must plan and prepare in advance to protect their organisation's data assets in the event of an unexpected crisis, and return them to normal operating conditions. To minimise downtime in such circumstances should be the aim of every effective DBA. To plan for recovery, It pays to have the mindset of a pessimist.
Cloud Concerns
Security is a concern in the cloud, but should it be your number one concern? Steve Jones notes that business continuity might be a bigger issue.
Preparing for the Unthinkable - a Disaster/Recovery Implementation
Functionality to help maintain a Disaster/Recovery (D/R) Environment synchronized with production is introduced and the associated challenges are discussed.
Unteachable Disaster Recovery Techniques
There are some skills which are extensions of your instincts, and which you can only learn though years of experience. Matt Simmons has this brought home by the fact that he was recently minutes away from a data-loss disaster, and he doesn't quite know how he prevented it.
Blogs
Houston AI-Lytics 2026–Powerpoint Slides
By Steve Jones
Thanks to everyone for attending my session on running a Local LLM. If you...
The Book of Redgate: Do the Right Things
By Steve Jones
I do believe that Redgate has been very customer focused since it’s inception. I’ve...
GenAI vs Dashboards: Not the Same (And Never Will Be)
By James Serra
There’s a question I’ve been hearing more and more lately, especially as Copilot, Fabric,...
Forums
T-SQL in SQL Server 2025: JSON_ARRAYAGG
Comments posted to this topic are about the item T-SQL in SQL Server 2025:...
Spring Connections and Learning at PASS On Tour
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Spring Connections and Learning at...
Multiple Sequence Values
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Multiple Sequence Values
Question of the Day
Multiple Sequence Values
How do I easily get the next 12 sequence values from a sequence object?
See possible answers