Inspect Early. Inspect Often. What an old barn that almost had a big issue can teach technologists. buff.ly/2XEjGit

Yesterday, we posted about planning to fail. Here's a bit more in part 2. "You are going to fail. You'll have multiple failures in life. It's what you do with them that predicts the overall success." buff.ly/3BkIAr9

Build your plans around possible failure scenarios, and you'll end up succeeding. Some thoughts on this. buff.ly/3c5kYbO

6 Things to do before calling Microsoft Support for a SQL Server challenge (..If you really must, but maybe you should spend more time troubleshooting first. We can help with it if you need it.) buff.ly/3INjXV5

"It's Not YOUR Emergency" - This is a skill our founder learned from firefighting and EMS, but it applies to consulting and "DBAing" buff.ly/3aqRKoq

Do you have databases? Then you need a DBA. It's that simple. Here are some thoughts on why you ought to hire a DBA (Either full-time or at least reach out to your friendly DBA as a Service company. We know a few ;-) ) buff.ly/2OosaYp

Looking for a technical job? Here are 6 reasons I wouldn't hire you as you prepare for your interviews. buff.ly/3boh6WP

Upgrading your SQL Servers? Check out our SQL Server upgrade checklist for some best practices. buff.ly/2SP2m48

We're not advocating gambling - but if you are going to gamble with your prod SQL Server environment - we have some suggestions of what kind of bets to make. buff.ly/3qp4LTQ

It's the middle of the month (close enough!) A good time to check in with your SQL Server backups. Can you restore them? Are you really sure? Well, make sure. Tell us in the comments what you do to make sure. buff.ly/3HMLp5y

Software Vendors - always a thorn in the side of DBAs (but it's never us DBAs who are the thorn ;-) ). In this older post of ours, we suggest some questions for DBAs to ask software vendors. Share your Vendor horror stories here, we love misery! buff.ly/2MQqiHq

It's probably (past) time for you to upgrade your SQL Servers. Straight Path did a webinar last year about upgrades. Check out the posts and resources and download our upgrade guide. Upgrades are not as scary as you think. buff.ly/3tSsKiY

Please don't do in-place upgrades. Just don't. buff.ly/2RuvcJj

DBAs deserve vacations. If you have 1 DBA, they really never take a vacation. They deserve a team of Senior SQL Server DBAs by their side. Our company doesn't take a vacation. We bring expertise and we help keep the lights on. Give us a call. We can help. buff.ly/3HQ4K5N

Did you check out your SQL Server patch level from the post yesterday? Last month we did a webinar about health checks. Check out the recording, links, downloads, and tools. Go check your SQL Servers' health now. I promise your email can wait. buff.ly/3tSRLdI

Welcome back from the long weekend. Wait on the e-mail, look at your SQL Servers and check out their version. Need patching? Schedule it. buff.ly/3gxWMAR

You should NOT be doing ANYTHING big with your SQL Servers on the Friday before a long weekend. But if you are - please don't just validate that existing Failover Cluster without unchecking storage!!! buff.ly/3OZm5vl