Articles & how-to guides
In-depth, practitioner-level guides on the SQL Server problems teams hit most — mapped to the questions clients ask most often.
SQL Server Performance Tuning: A Practical Health Check
How I run a SQL Server health check — wait statistics, Query Store, execution plans, and the index and tempdb issues that surface first. Read the guide →
Always On Availability Groups, Explained
Designing and troubleshooting Always On Availability Groups: listeners, quorum and witness, failover, and the mistakes that cause split-brain. Read the guide →
SQL Server Migration & Upgrade Playbook
A repeatable plan for SQL Server migrations and upgrades — compatibility levels, cutover, rollback, and validating performance after the move. Read the guide →
Azure SQL vs. AWS RDS for SQL Server
Choosing between Azure SQL (Database and Managed Instance) and AWS RDS for SQL Server: cost, HA, limits, and what breaks in the move to PaaS. Read the guide →
Taming Parameter Sniffing & Bad Plans
Why the same query is fast one day and slow the next — parameter sniffing, cardinality estimates, and safe fixes that don't just mask the problem. Read the guide →
Blocking & Deadlocks: Finding the Root Cause
Reading deadlock graphs and blocking chains, and the indexing and transaction changes that actually resolve them. Read the guide →
Securing SQL Server, in three parts
A practical series on locking down Microsoft SQL Server — who gets in, what gets recorded, and what an attacker sees if they reach the files.
Part 1: Authentication, Network & Data Protection
Authentication and role-based access, forced connection encryption and network isolation, and in-database controls like Row-Level Security and Dynamic Data Masking. Start the series →
Part 2: Auditing & Threat Detection
SQL Server Audit, login auditing, temporal tables for change history, Ledger tamper-evidence, and Microsoft Defender for SQL. Read part 2 →
Part 3: Encryption at Rest & Key Management
TDE, backup encryption, Always Encrypted, the key hierarchy, and EKM with Azure Key Vault — and how to choose between them. Read part 3 →
Real client results
Write-ups of actual SQL Server engagements — the problem, what was at risk, what I did, and the outcome. For the running summary across engagements, see client results and the cloud & ETL work.
Migrating 11 Databases off SQL Server 2008
~700 GB across 11 databases moved from end-of-life SQL Server 2008 to 2017 with log shipping, a rehearsed rollback, and a reduced-downtime cutover. Read the case study →
Retiring SQL Server 2012: 84 Databases, One Quiet Cutover
84 databases moved to SQL Server 2019 Standard via database mirroring — the whole cutover in about 2 hours 25 minutes. Read the case study →
Tuning a Struggling SQL Server on AWS RDS
Measured wait and plan analysis, index strategy, and plan reuse — tuning as cost control instead of another instance-size upgrade. Read the case study →
Need SQL Server help now?
I offer remote and fractional SQL Server DBA and consulting services — performance tuning, HA/DR, migrations, and cloud database work. See what I do, review client results, or get in touch to talk through your situation.