Over the past few weeks, I’ve been contacted by multiple customers experiencing the same frustrating issue. Applications and SSMS sessions that had been rock-solid for years suddenly started throwing errors when connecting over VPN: Naturally, everyone assumed it was a SQL Server problem – which is why they called me. On the server side, though, […]
The Rise of “Post Regret”: Why More Teams Are Regretting Their SQL Server to Postgres Migration
As a data nerd who’s spent the last 25+ years helping organizations keep their databases running smoothly, I’ve had this conversation more times than I can count: “We’re moving to Postgres to save on licensing costs.” It sounds great on paper, open source, no vendor lock-in, and those big SQL Server license fees go away. […]
Critical SQL Server Security Patch Alert: CVE-2026-21262 – Patch Today and Start Planning Your Upgrade
I hate writing these posts. On March 10, 2026, Microsoft dropped a security update that fixes CVE-2026-21262 – an Elevation of Privilege vulnerability in SQL Server. If you’ve got a SQL login (even a low-privileged one) and someone knows how to pull the trigger on the exploit, they can elevate straight to sysadmin rights over […]
DBCC CHECKDB: Why It Matters and What It Means for Your Azure SQL Environments
Hey everyone, Tim Radney here. Over the years I’ve seen far too many organizations learn the hard way what happens when you ignore database integrity checks. In traditional SQL Server environments—whether on-premises or in IaaS—running DBCC CHECKDB regularly is non-negotiable. It’s your frontline defense for verifying the logical and physical integrity of every object in […]
How to Troubleshoot a Runaway Transaction Log File
Part of being a DBA is dealing with transaction logs that grow uncontrolled for some reason. This often gets raised to the DBA in the form of a drive space issue on the disk that contains the transaction log. Troubleshooting this can go a few different directions depending on the environment. Is the database in […]
SQL Server 2025: What’s New and Why It Matters
SQL Server 2025 is Generally Available
SQL Server 2016 End of Extended Support
Many organizations are still running SQL Server 2016 in production. Sadly, many are running versions older than 2016 as well, however with SQL Server 2016, the end of extended support runs out very soon. July 14th, 2026, to be precise. After this date, there will be no additional updates unless you have an agreement for […]
SQL Server Upgrades
I’ve had this conversation at least a 1000 times over the course of my career working with SQL Server and teaching classes. Is it better to upgrade in place or do a side by side upgrade. There are pros and cons to each method, however I’ll say upfront that my preference is a side-by-side upgrade […]