Have you ever felt like managing a SQL Server Always On Availability Group is making your life miserable? It’s severely messing up with your sleep cycle? It’s causing you to miss very special occasions? Even missing meals? If so, you’re not alone. In fact, I see this going on all the time with the […]
PostGuest on Brent Ozar’s Office Hours
I was privileged to join one of Brent Ozar’s Office Hours podcast. In case you’re not aware, Brent and his amazing team host weekly podcasts where you can ask your SQL Server-related questions. Since I was joining in, attendees were encouraged to ask SQL Server high availability and disaster recovery-related questions. Here’s the video recording […]
PostThe Smart Way to Troubleshoot SQL Server Cluster and Always On Availability Group Outages
A few weeks ago, I was trying to figure out why my Korg X50 music workstation was not sending MIDI data to my MacBook Pro. While the Korg X50 has its own sound library and can function without the MacBook, the use of software made it easy for me to do audio recordings. But what […]
PostHow the Client-Server Model Can Help Make SQL Server Always On Availability Group Replica Configuration A Lot Easier
One of the most common error you’ll encounter when you try to join a SQL Server instance as a replica in an Always On Availability Group is the dreaded Error 35250. You’ll find a ton of blog posts and articles on how to resolve this particular error. The goal of this blog post is […]
Post5 Questions To Ask Why Your SQL Server Always On Availability Groups Did Not Automatically Failover
You don’t qualify! Imagine hearing those words from someone telling you that you’re not enough. Insufficient. You didn’t meet the standard. I’ve heard a lot of that when I started looking for a job after graduating from college. An engineering degree wasn’t enough to get hired. It didn’t help that I failed seventeen […]
PostThe Real Secret to Successfully Upgrade SQL Server Databases
Given Microsoft’s announcement of SQL Server 2022 preview, you somehow get an idea of the frequency of releases for future SQL Server versions. This translates to more database upgrade and migration work that SQL Server DBAs have to do. However, keeping up with the latest and greatest version is not practical from a business standpoint. […]
PostUpcoming Virtual Training Class: SQL Server Always On Availability Groups: The Senior DBA’s Field Guide
In partnership with Brent Ozar (Twitter | blog). The idea behind this partnership started last year when Brent was kind enough to spend one Saturday morning with me over breakfast at the Bar Siena Restaurant in Chicago. I have been thinking about launching my online course – Windows Server Failover Clustering for the Smart SQL Server […]
PostLast call for registration
I teach about failover clustering for SQL Server – whether it’s Failover Clustered Instances or Availability Groups. Failover clustering does not have to be confusing nor complicated. It just has to work. And when things we are responsible for don’t work, we get the blame. There’s a reason behind the running joke about the Default […]
PostFinding The Best Teacher
I used to photocopy physics laboratory reports. This was before I had access to a personal computer and the internet. The fastest way to answer questions in a physics laboratory report was to copy someone else’s. No thinking, only reacting. I made it thru my senior year in high school with a high score in physics […]
PostYour First Cloud Pit Stop
I started this blog post series with one thing in mind: help SQL Server administrators prepare for the journey towards the cloud. I may be a little bit ambitious to use hybrid SQL Server high availability and disaster recovery (HA/DR) solutions as a starting point. But since SQL Server HA/DR solutions have been around for a […]