Edition: Saturday, August 3rd, 2024
A few weeks ago I needed to configure replication between two SQL Server 2022 named instances, on separate networks. In this configuration, the publisher would push data to the subscriber and all related replication jobs would reside at the...
Edition: Saturday, July 13th, 2024
On July 9th, 2024, Microsoft released a GDR update for multiple editions of SQL Server. As a DBA, you may be planning how to install this update in your lower environments (DEV, QA, UAT, etc.), tested, and then deploy to production.
However, you may...
Edition: Saturday, July 6th, 2024
As you begin creating playbooks to automate your work, you'll soon discover they can become many 100s of lines of YAML.
Ansible Roles, allow you to group tasks, variables, handlers, and other artifacts. Today, I'll focus on an example role...
Edition: Saturday, June 29th, 2024
Storing passwords in plain text files is a big problem. Such as the SA password when working with SQL Server. But how do you automate the installation of SQL Server and store the password securely?
If you're using Ansible, it's...
Edition: Saturday, June 22nd, 2024
SQL Server's configuration files can be a little daunting at first glance. There are over 50 options which can be set. Usually, these are supplied when using the installation wizard. But, what if you needed to automate the installation of...
Edition: Saturday, June 15th, 2024
No one wants to build a new SQL Server instance, release it to production, and immediately request a maintenance window to fix a configuration issue.
Has this ever happened to you before? I've experienced it a few times, and it doesn't reflect well on the...
Edition: Saturday, June 8th, 2024
Are you familiar with the terms DevOps and Platform Engineering? DevOps is the process of consistently and reliably deploying applications into production environments. Platform Engineering focuses on building and maintaining the foundational...
Edition: Saturday, May 25th, 2024
Over the years, I've completed a lot of SQL Server installations. Some of those resulted in having to move database files around afterward because I failed to ensure the disks were properly formatted and aligned. I had to move files to a...
Edition: Saturday, April 27th, 2024
Over the past several weeks we've implemented a CA, generated a certificate, and enabled SQL Server network encryption. We validated encryption was being used via the sys.dm_exec_connections dmv. This week, I'll take the validation one...
Edition: Saturday, April 20th, 2024
For a DBA, securing SQL Server is a critical aspect of the job. Securing data at rest, data in motion, and data in use (in memory) are all areas a potential attacker could focus on. This month, I've focused on "securing data in...
Edition: Saturday, April 13th, 2024
Last week, we ended after the initial CA configuration. This week, we'll enable HTTPS for our Web Enrollment site. I'll cover an issue I encountered when using the Edge browser to request a user certificate via Web Enrollment and a...
Edition: Saturday, April 6th, 2024
In the last edition, we concluded after installing Active Directory Certificate Services.
Today, we'll configure the new Certificate Authority as an Enterprise CA. We're installing an Enterprise CA because they're integrated with...