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 […]
The “Kill” Command: What to Consider Before Stopping a SQL Server Process
Whether you’re troubleshooting on-premises SQL Server, Azure SQL DB, Managed Instance, or Amazon RDS, you will eventually encounter a “lead blocker”—that one high-cost, long-running session holding every other process hostage. While your first instinct might be to issue a KILL command, the consequences vary wildly depending on what that session is actually doing. Here is […]