Bloggers Should Have Reach

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One of my goals for 2018 is to expand the reach of my blog. As a blogger starting out I had my own site I posted to, but my blogs only reached those who followed me on Twitter, Facebook, Google + and LinkedIn. My blog automatically posts to these three sites using a WordPress Jetpack Plugin called Publicize. After a few months, I discovered that syndication could be setup on other sites such as SQL Server Central.  This allowed more people the opportunity to read my writing and expand my reach. Many sites, such as these will even send your… Continue Reading

Expanding My Reach

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I am so thrilled to have the opportunity to expand my writing with my first Simple-Talk article posted.  Simple- Talk is technical journal and community hub from Redgate. It in I discuss my passion for my work as a Lone DBA.   You can find the full article using the link below. https://www.red-gate.com/simple-talk/opinion/career/survive-lone-dba/ Continue Reading

Can You Hear It Now?

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Here is a quick blog to show you something I discovered that I didn’t know existed. I was on a Skype call and noted that the presentation I had been watching was no longer audible. I tried messing with my volume, I made sure my sounds weren’t muted and played around with my speakers and still nothing. I could hear the skype call without issues, but I wanted to multitask and continue to listen to the presentation. Finally, a light bulb went off and I thought maybe windows was “doing me a favor” and turning off all noises why I… Continue Reading

Maintaining Balance

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Last week, I got the chance to give my I’m It Survival Tips for the Lone DBA  in a webcast for the first time thanks to the PASS Women in Technology Virtual Chapter. This is by far my favorite session to give because it’s real life and can pertain to all us. Whether you are a Lone DBA or part of a team, we all encounter the struggles when handling a heavy work load. I always love the interactions I get from this session. It allows us to share our stories and learn from each other. As a Lone DBA you are on call… Continue Reading

How to get started with Always Encrypted for Beginners Part 3: One Two Punch

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A few weeks ago, I wrote Part 1 and 2 of this series, which was a beginner’s guide to Always Encrypted. In part 3, I am going to go over what road blocks I ran into when trying to implement this solution for a client. The goal of the project was to prevent the DBA from being able to view salary information, while still allowing the application to function without issue. We were able to encrypt the data easily, but the entire process was not without issues. We had to remove default constraint values to get it to implemented. Always… Continue Reading

It’s All in the Name, Index Naming Conventions

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Awhile back, if you are on Twitter, you can probably recall my ranting about the 949 indexes I was reviewing. The process was to determine duplicate indexes and consolidate them or discard the unneeded ones. My ranting was not about the duplicates per se it was about the index names. It only takes a second to name an object with some name that tells what the thing is. Below I will show you some examples and give you an easy script that will help you generate your index names. Taking a little time to name things appropriately can go a… Continue Reading

AHHH I need a Blog Topic!!!

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One of the hardest things you can do as a blogger is to come up with a post topic. Do you make it simple for newbies, technical, or something personal?  After figuring out a topic, now you have to write.  However, there is a difference in what you say and what will people actually want to read. Blogging is not easy, but without it, all of our google searches to help solve problems would be much less fruitful.   It’s important to put your experience into written words to help others, and let’s be honest lots of us use out blog… Continue Reading

How to Get Started with Always Encrypted for Beginners Part 2

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In this post we will pick up where we left off in Part 1, if you haven’t read that please go back and do so. Now that we have encrypted our columns, it’s time to take a look at how we decrypt them inside SQL Server Management Studio or through our applications. You’ll be surprised to see how easy it is. Verify Your Setup First, let’s verify that the table is still encrypted, and nothing changed after you ran through the Part 1 examples. To confirm, simply query sys.columns, script out the table, or query the data to check that… Continue Reading

How to get started with Always Encrypted for Beginners Part 1

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Encryption has always been intriguing to me but seemed like it could be a very complex process to set up. However, SQL Server has made it very simple when they introduced Always Encrypted (AE) into SQL Server 2016 and Azure SQL Database. Unlike Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) which only encrypts data files and backups at rest, AE is configured on a column level and not database level. Additionally, Always Encrypted is available in Standard (and Express) Edition, starting with SQL Server 2016 SP1.  You can easily encrypt a social security number (SSN) which is considered very sensitive within the United… Continue Reading

Thankful DBA

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This week is Thanksgiving in the United States, so I thought it fitting to write a quick blog on what I am thankful for as a DBA. These are in no particular order and feel free to respond with something you are thankful for. I’d love to hear it. Glenn Berry’s Diagnostic Scripts- (B|T) Used these for years. Really a great set of scripts and explanations that we all should be grateful for. Ola Hallengren’s (B) Maintenance scripts. Index Optimization, Backup, and Integrity Checks for all! They have become an industry standard and continue to get better and better. RCSI (Read… Continue Reading