Since Microsoft SQL Server databases are critical for many organizations, protecting SQL Server from disasters such as security breaches and data loss isn’t optional—it’s essential. This is especially true for sectors like healthcare, banking, and FinTech. I’ve suffered a great many catastrophes in my life. Most of them never happened. -Mark Twain Mark Twain’s quip…
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Keeping SQL Servers secure is essential, especially in highly regulated industries like finance, healthcare, and government. The Center for Internet Security (CIS) offers a valuable resource for SQL Server administrators: a set of security benchmarks that provide actionable, best-practice guidance to secure SQL Server instances effectively. Implementing these standards helps reduce vulnerabilities, achieve compliance, and…
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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…
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If you’re running an older version of SQL Server, you might be wondering if it’s time to upgrade. SQL Server 2022 brings powerful new features for both on-premises and cloud environments. It promises better performance, stronger security, and real-time analytics. But with the potential announcement of SQL Server vNext looming, is now the right time…
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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…
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As an IT leader in a heavily regulated sector such as finance or healthcare, you’re no stranger to audits. They’re a critical part of ensuring compliance with regulations like the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA), the PCS Security Standards Council (PCI DSS), and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Still, audits…
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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…
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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…
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SQL Server is designed to efficiently manage memory on its own. It requests memory when it’s needed and releases memory back to the system when it’s not. However, the default settings may not be ideal for your situation. An experienced database administrator will usually fine-tune these settings to optimize performance and server stability. Minimum server…
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In my last post, I broke down the parts of the anatomy of the SQL Server transaction log. In this post, I will share a few tips for keeping your transaction logs well-maintained and your SQL Server databases happy and healthy. Here are 7 important tips for managing your transaction logs: Now, let’s break these…
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