Tag: Serogroup

How to Build SQL Server FCIs in AWS with Multi-Attach EBS Volumes

Need to build a SQL Server FCI in AWS but prefer not to use FSx for Windows File Server? Good news, you have other options. One option that more closely aligns with traditional FCIs that use shared disks is Multi-Attach EBS volumes. Multi-Attach EBS volumes in AWS enable organizations to use Windows Server Failover Clusters…
Read more

Reduce the Cost of a SQL Server Estate

8 Ways to Reduce the Cost of a SQL Server Estate

Whether in the cloud or a data center, the cost of maintaining a SQL Server estate can escalate quickly. Beyond the direct expenses, indirect costs can quietly unbalance and outpace your IT budget. Let’s look at 8 ways to reduce the costs of your SQL Server estate. Direct and Indirect Costs of a SQL Server…
Read more

Basic Availability Groups: Affordable High Availability with Key Limitations

Basic Availability Groups: Affordable High Availability with Key Limitations

In SQL Server 2022, Basic Availability Groups provide a limited, cost-effective solution for high availability and disaster recovery in the Standard Edition. However, they have several limitations when compared to a standard Availability Group in the Enterprise Edition. Although Basic AGs were introduced before SQL Server 2022, we’ll focus strictly on the latest version. Let’s…
Read more

Reducing Business Risks for a SQL Server Estate

Reducing Business Risks for a SQL Server Estate

Your SQL Servers are the backbone of your company’s data operations. They power critical applications and store valuable information. They enable financial decisions, undergird operational activities, and support your sales processes. But what happens if there’s a problem? What happens when data is lost or corrupted? Or if one of your key systems is down…
Read more

Streamline your failovers with contained Availability Groups

Streamline SQL Server Management with Contained Availability Groups

SQL Server Availability Groups can present challenges after a failover, such as missing logins, outdated passwords, or absent SQL Server Agent jobs. Some clients address these issues by requiring the primary replica to remain on the same instance. If a failover occurs due to an outage or patching, they generally request to revert the AG…
Read more

Which Data Role Do You Need?

What’s in a Job Title? Understanding Changing Data Roles

The world of data is rapidly evolving, and the demand for skilled data professionals has continued to rise. But who are these data professionals? Those of us in the field have been asked many times about the nature of what we do. Students and prospective career changers, hiring managers, business partners, and prospective clients all…
Read more

Check your SQL Server's code compatibility with Azure so you don't step in it.

Is your SQL Server Code Ready for Azure?

I recently had a discussion with a client that turned to the question of SQL Server code compatibility with Azure SQL Database. We were designing a new pipeline for their on-premises SQL environment, and they mentioned their abandoned cloud migration effort from a few years earlier. The business ended up pausing this effort because of…
Read more

High availability options--which one should you choose?

Availability Groups: What’s Right for Your Business?

I’ve had several companies inquire about SQL Server’s built-in high availability options over the years. This conversation usually indicates a need to ensure that their database systems remain operational and accessible with minimal downtime. But why now? They’ve been in business for years and are just now interested in HA/DR. What changed? Reasons vary, but…
Read more

Overcome the roadblocks between you and a better SQL Environment

“We Want a Better SQL Environment, Just Not Yet.”

No one wants a slow, unreliable SQL Server that leaks data like a sieve. No, they want a fast, reliable, and secure database environment. However, they may not want it right now. Creating a better SQL environment can wait until later, right? It might seem that way, but the risks will only grow while you…
Read more

Take steps to improve your SQL environment

The Perfect SQL Server: Striving for Excellence in an Imperfect World

Does the perfect SQL Server exist? And what would that even look like? Let’s think about it for a moment. If the perfect SQL Server exists, it would be flawlessly tuned for its workload. It would have the ideal amount of hardware resources, and its settings would be perfectly optimized. The perfect SQL Server would…
Read more