Do you sometimes get discouraged? – You’ve been trying to learn SQL Server Always On Availability Groups for months – even years – and you feel like giving up because it’s too complicated and confusing. – You attempted to set it up from the ground up – but failed miserably. You started to question […]
PostDealing With A Black Box Even When You Don’t Have Access
As SQL Server DBAs working with Always On Availability Groups, sometimes our hands are tied when working with “black box” systems. – the host machine running your Always On Availability Group VMs that is causing outages. Your Always On Availability Groups are experiencing a lot of unexpected failovers and outages. But since it’s a […]
Post3 Biggest Mistakes DBAs Make When Deploying and Managing SQL Server Always On
I was reviewing a client’s Always On Availability Group architecture last week and spoke to their internal team about their design choices. They brought me in to find out what’s causing unexpected outages and how to prevent them from happening in the future. The DBA team is top-notch and one of the smartest group […]
PostWhat To Do When You Have Too Many Incidents In Your HA Environments
– Are you dealing with too many incidents and outages with your SQL Server Always On Availability Groups? – Are you in constant firefighting mode trying to keep the lights on? – Do you get woken up in the middle of the night when the databases unexpectedly become unavailable? – Do you feel like your […]
PostThe Curse of SILOs
I was on the phone with a client the other day where they had to push back on a database migration scheduled the weekend prior. They were migrating from a SQL Server 2008 standalone instance and into SQL Server 2019 Always On Availability Groups. I can feel the tension in his voice over the phone […]
PostThe A.R.T. of Dealing with a Crappy Environment That You Just Inherited
Every SQL Server high availability solution fall into these two (2) categories – ones that you built and ones that others built. Simple, right? The problem lies when somebody else – a different team, a consultant, a managed services provider – built the solution, didn’t follow design and implementation best practices, and left the […]
PostAre You Asking The Most Important Question About Your Always On Availability Groups?
Do you find it very confusing dealing with SQL Server Always On Availability Groups and not knowing what questions to ask? Even worse, you start having more questions the moment you get an answer to your previous one. Is it… – How many replicas do I need? – How do I configure the cluster […]
PostFocus on Windows Server Failover Clustering – Practical SQL Server HA/DR
If you need high availability for SQL Server databases, you need a cluster resource manager. And if you’re not aware of how Windows Server Failover Clustering works, you’re putting your job as a database administrator at risk. Because your responsibilities are now dependent on the things that are outside SQL Server. In this episode […]
PostMigrating HA Solutions Part 2 – Practical SQL Server HA/DR Show
I couldn’t go thru all of the questions during the session. So, this is Part 2. It’s inevitable that you will be migrating your SQL Server databases throughout it’s lifecycle. But migrating a standalone database is not the same as when they’re in a high availability solution. This episode of the Practical SQL […]
PostMigrating HA Solutions Part 1 – Practical SQL Server HA/DR Show
It’s inevitable that you will be migrating your SQL Server databases throughout it’s lifecycle. But migrating a standalone database is not the same as when they’re in a high availability solution. This episode of the Practical SQL Server HA/DR Show covers what you need to consider when when migrating SQL Server high availability solutions. […]