AzCopy basics: upload, download and sync files with Azure Blob Storage
Install AzCopy, sign in with Entra ID instead of keys, copy and sync folders to and from Blob Storage, and read the job logs when a transfer fails part-way.
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Basic
Start here: foundations, first-time setup and everyday checks, explained step by step. 142 posts.
Azure
24 posts
Azure CLI first steps: sign in, pick the right subscription, set defaults and read the output
A first-day guide to the Azure CLI. Sign in safely, make sure you are in the right subscription, set a default resource group and location, and filter output with --query so you read only what matters.
Azure Cost Management basics: see what you spend, set a budget and get alerted before the bill
Find out what costs money in a subscription, group spend by resource group and tag, create a budget with email alerts, and export daily cost data so surprises show up in days, not at month end.
Azure VM basics: stop vs deallocate, start, restart and resize without surprises
What each VM power state means, why "Stopped" can still bill for compute, how to deallocate, start and resize from the CLI and PowerShell, and what changes (IPs, temp disk) when you do.
Managed identity basics: system-assigned vs user-assigned, and your first passwordless connection
What a managed identity is, when to pick system-assigned or user-assigned, and a worked example that lets a VM read a Key Vault secret and a storage blob with no password or key in the code.
Recovery Services vault can't be deleted - clearing backup items, servers, storage accounts and private endpoints
Deleting a Recovery Services vault fails with "existing resources within the vault". Find what still depends on it, clear each dependency in order, and understand soft-deleted items and vaults.
Azure Monitor alert didn't fire, or nobody got the notification: a checklist
Work out whether an Azure Monitor alert never fired, fired but was suppressed, or fired and the action group failed to deliver, then fix the gap and test it.
AuthorizationFailed in Azure: an RBAC permission errors cheat sheet
Decode AuthorizationFailed and LinkedAuthorizationFailed errors, find which role a user, pipeline or managed identity is missing, and grant the smallest role that fixes it.
Azure DevOps sign-in and access errors - is it a service outage or your tenant? A 10-minute triage
When users suddenly can't reach Azure DevOps, first decide whether it's a service incident or something in your tenant - Conditional Access, expired PATs, organisation policies or network. Then fix the right thing and keep pipelines running with the CLI extension patched.
Azure resource locks: ScopeLocked errors, ReadOnly side effects and managing locks safely
A delete, scale-out, key listing or backup fails with ScopeLocked. Find the lock (it may be inherited), understand ReadOnly side effects and change locks without leaving production unprotected.
Azure Service Health alerts that actually reach on-call - incidents, planned maintenance, health advisories and retirements
Both of Azure's late-September 2026 incident reviews end with the same advice - configure Service Health alerts. Set up one alert per event type and scope, route them to the right people, and include health advisories so model and service retirements don't arrive as surprises.
Who changed or deleted it? Finding the caller in the Azure Activity Log, a cheat sheet
CLI, PowerShell, KQL and Resource Graph queries to find who changed, restarted or deleted an Azure resource, when, from where and what changed.
Optimization: switching off non-production Azure out of hours - VMs, AKS, App Gateway, databases
Dev, test and training environments usually run 168 hours a week but are used for about 50. Tag environments with schedules, stop VMs, AKS clusters, Application Gateways and databases automatically out of hours, let people opt out for late work, and report the savings.
Azure Resource Graph queries for daily operations, a cheat sheet
Copy-paste Resource Graph queries for inventory, orphaned resources, risky NSG rules, unprotected VMs, resource health and who changed what, across every subscription at once.
Is an NSG blocking it? Azure network security group troubleshooting cheat sheet
Commands and queries to find which NSG rule allowed or denied a flow (effective rules, IP flow verify, next hop and VNet flow logs) and to add the narrowest fix.
Azure Files share won't mount: port 445, authentication and SMB version fixes
Fix "System error 53", error 5 and mount timeouts on Windows and Linux by checking port 445, credentials, identity-based auth and SMB encryption settings.
Azure naming, tagging and cost foundation: budgets that warn before the invoice
A naming convention, mandatory tags enforced by policy, budgets with alerts and a monthly cost review routine, so every resource has an owner and spend surprises are caught early.
Azure VM at 100% CPU: finding the process without logging in
Use Run Command and VM insights to find the process behind high CPU on Windows and Linux VMs, even when RDP or SSH is too slow to use.
Customer says the Azure VM's C: or / drive is full: expanding the OS disk
Grow an Azure managed OS disk, then extend the partition and filesystem on Windows and Linux, with the checks to run before and after.
Deployment failed with RequestDisallowedByPolicy: finding and handling the Azure Policy
Identify which policy assignment blocked a deployment, understand what it requires, and either fix the template or request a scoped exemption.
Running a single-region App Service app in production: the baseline
Plan sizing, deployment slots, health checks, private access, identity and monitoring for an App Service web app that runs in one region without surprises.
Secure baseline for a production Azure Storage account
Redundancy choice, network isolation, identity-based access, soft delete, versioning, immutability and lifecycle rules for a storage account that holds customer data.
Standalone Azure VM production build checklist: single-instance done right
When a workload runs on one VM, these settings decide whether it gets the single-instance SLA, survives a disk or host failure, and can be restored. Disks, backup, patching, access and monitoring.
Users can't sign in: decoding Entra ID AADSTS error codes
The AADSTS codes behind most sign-in tickets, what each one means, and where to look in the sign-in logs to fix it quickly.
AWS
20 posts
Amazon S3 basics: buckets, objects, sync and presigned URLs from the command line
Create a private bucket with sensible defaults, upload, download and sync folders, share a single file safely with a presigned URL, and turn on versioning so mistakes can be undone.
AWS CLI v2 first steps: profiles, IAM Identity Center sign-in and checking who you are
Install AWS CLI v2, sign in with IAM Identity Center instead of long-lived keys, use named profiles for several accounts, and always confirm the account and region before you run a change.
AWS IAM basics: users, groups, roles and policies explained with examples you can run
The IAM building blocks in plain terms, how a policy document is read, how roles are assumed, and a small worked example that gives an EC2 instance read access to one S3 bucket without keys.
CloudWatch basics: your first alarm with SNS email, from metric to notification
Understand metrics, statistics and periods, create a CPU and a status-check alarm that emails you through SNS, test it on purpose, and avoid the beginner settings that make alarms noisy or silent.
RDS and Aurora pending maintenance: a checklist for OS updates, minor upgrades and certificate rotation
Find every pending RDS and Aurora maintenance action, know which ones cause downtime, and apply them in your own window instead of AWS's.
Security groups vs network ACLs: AWS VPC firewall basics and how to debug a blocked connection
How security groups and network ACLs differ (stateful vs stateless, allow-only vs allow and deny), sensible defaults for web and database tiers, and a step-by-step check when traffic does not get through.
AWS CLI --query and --filters cheat sheet: fast inventory answers for EC2, EBS, RDS, Lambda and IAM
Copy-paste AWS CLI --filters and JMESPath --query patterns for everyday questions such as which instances are running, which volumes are orphaned and what still allows IMDSv1.
EC2 instance stuck in stopping, shutting-down or pending: force stop, state reasons and fixes
Get an EC2 instance out of stopping or shutting-down, read the state reason when a start bounces back to stopped, and fix the KMS, capacity and volume causes.
SSM Run Command cheat sheet - running scripts across EC2 fleets safely with rate control and output to S3
Run shell or PowerShell commands on many instances at once with SSM Run Command. Target by tag, limit concurrency and errors, send output to S3, and check results per instance, with no SSH or RDP needed.
Optimization: stopping non-production AWS out of hours - EC2, RDS, EKS, ECS and more
Development and test environments are typically used about a third of the week but run all of it. Tag resources with a schedule, stop EC2, RDS, Aurora, EKS node groups, ECS services and Redshift automatically, give teams an override, and report savings.
CloudWatch Logs Insights cheat sheet: queries for errors, Lambda, VPC Flow Logs and CloudTrail
Copy-paste CloudWatch Logs Insights queries for error spikes, slow Lambda invocations, rejected VPC flows and CloudTrail AccessDenied, plus running them from the CLI.
Transformation: migrate every EBS gp2 volume to gp3 without downtime
Move EBS volumes from gp2 to gp3 live with Elastic Volumes. Find gp2 volumes across regions, set IOPS and throughput so performance doesn't drop, convert in batches, and update launch templates and IaC so gp2 doesn't come back.
Who changed this? Finding AWS changes with CloudTrail, Athena and Config
Commands and queries to find who changed a security group, IAM role, bucket or instance, from CloudTrail event history to Athena and AWS Config history.
AWS tagging and cost governance foundation: tag policies, budgets and anomaly detection
Enforce a tag schema with tag policies, activate cost allocation tags, set budgets and Cost Anomaly Detection per account, and run a short monthly savings review.
CloudWatch agent not sending metrics or logs: fix it in five checks
Get memory, disk and log data flowing again by checking the agent status, its config, the IAM role, endpoint access and the namespace you're looking in.
Customer can't SSH to an EC2 instance: timeout vs refused vs permission denied
The error message tells you which layer is broken. Here's how to check each one, from security groups and route tables to sshd, keys and EC2 Instance Connect.
Extending an EBS volume without downtime (Linux and Windows)
Increase an EBS volume online with modify-volume, then grow the partition and filesystem on Linux (ext4, XFS, LVM) and Windows, with a snapshot first.
S3 bucket security baseline: Block Public Access, encryption, versioning and Object Lock
Settings every production S3 bucket should have, from account-level Block Public Access and ownership controls to encryption, TLS-only policies, versioning, lifecycle and access logging.
Standalone EC2 instance production build: IMDSv2, gp3, SSM, backup and recovery
A checklist for a single production EC2 instance that is secure, patchable, recoverable and monitored, plus the auto-recovery settings that limit downtime from host failures.
Two AWS resources can't talk: security groups, NACLs, routes and Reachability Analyzer
Prove where a connection breaks between instances, subnets, peered VPCs or Transit Gateway attachments, using Reachability Analyzer and VPC Flow Logs instead of guesswork.
OCI
29 posts
Launch your first OCI Linux instance: shapes, images, SSH keys and connecting safely
Pick a shape and image, create an SSH key pair, launch an Oracle Linux instance from the CLI, connect directly or through the Bastion service, and know which default user to use for each image.
OCI basics: tenancy, compartments, OCIDs, regions and availability domains explained
The OCI vocabulary every new engineer trips over. What a tenancy, compartment and OCID are, how regions, availability domains and fault domains relate, and CLI commands to find your way around.
OCI block volume basics: create, attach, mount and keep it mounted after reboot
Create a block volume, choose paravirtualized or iSCSI attachment, format and mount it on Linux, write a safe /etc/fstab entry with nofail, and detach it cleanly.
OCI Cloud Shell basics: a ready-made terminal for the CLI, Terraform and kubectl
What OCI Cloud Shell gives you out of the box, how to change region and profile, keep files in its home directory, reach private resources with Cloud Shell networking, and its limits so you know when to use a real workstation.
OCI security lists vs network security groups: basics, defaults and a connection checklist
How OCI security lists and NSGs differ, how they combine, why stateless rules break replies, and a step-by-step checklist when you cannot reach an instance on SSH or an application port.
Running scripts on OCI instances without SSH using Run Command
Use the Oracle Cloud Agent Run Command plugin to run a shell or PowerShell script on an instance with no SSH key, no bastion and no open port, and collect the output.
Disabling legacy IMDSv1 on OCI instances - find v1 callers, switch to v2 only and keep it that way
Find which OCI instances and processes still call the v1 metadata endpoints, test IMDSv2, switch instances to "Version 2 only" and make new launches default to it.
OCI deprecations to schedule for 2026-2027 - Fleet Application Management, Data Safe audit trail fields, Database Migration and more
One table of the OCI service changes announced in 2026, with the date that matters and what to do, so each one gets an owner before it turns into an outage. Covers Fleet Application Management, Data Safe, Database Migration, Compute audit events, API Gateway, Data Science, Database Management and ADM.
OCI Logging Search cheat sheet: queries for errors, audit events, load balancer and VCN flow logs
Copy-paste OCI Logging Search queries for application errors, Audit events, load balancer access logs and VCN flow logs, plus running them from the OCI CLI.
OCI cost and usage cheat sheet - answering \"what did we spend and where\" with the Usage API and cost reports
Quick CLI and console recipes to break OCI spend down by service, compartment and tag, find daily spikes, and pull the detailed cost reports for your own analysis.
OCI Object Storage bulk transfers - fast uploads with multipart, bulk-upload and sync from the OCI CLI
Moving many files or very large files into OCI Object Storage is slow with one-by-one put. Use multipart uploads, bulk-upload with parallelism, and sync for repeat runs, then verify with checksums and counts.
Optimization: finding idle and orphaned OCI resources - volumes, backups, IPs, load balancers and stopped instances
Every tenancy accumulates resources that cost money and do nothing - detached volumes, preserved boot volumes, old manual backups, idle load balancers and forgotten test databases. Search for each type across compartments, confirm owners, clean up safely with a backup-first approach and keep it from coming back.
Optimization: switching off non-production OCI out of hours with Resource Scheduler
Dev and test environments run all week but are used during working hours. Use OCI Resource Scheduler (or Functions for unsupported resources) to stop and start instances, instance pools, Autonomous Databases and DB system nodes on a schedule, select resources by tags, give teams an override and track savings.
Resizing an OCI compute instance: change shape, OCPUs and memory safely
A step-by-step runbook to change an OCI VM's shape or flex OCPU and memory, covering limits, image compatibility, the reboot, rollback and post-change checks.
Reaching private OCI instances with the Bastion service: managed SSH and port forwarding
Create an OCI bastion, open managed SSH and port forwarding sessions to private instances and databases, and fix the usual connection failures.
Can't RDP to a Windows instance on OCI: password, ports and recovery
Fix RDP problems on OCI Windows instances, covering the initial opc password, security rules on 3389, the Windows firewall and NLA, and using Run Command or a console connection when locked out.
Expanding an OCI boot volume online and growing the filesystem
Resize a boot or block volume without stopping the instance, rescan the device, and extend the filesystem with oci-growfs on Oracle Linux or manually elsewhere.
OCI cost and governance foundation: tag namespaces, defaults, budgets and quotas
Create defined tag namespaces with tag defaults per compartment, set budgets with forecast alerts, use quotas to cap spend, and review cost reports monthly.
OCI high availability basics: availability domains vs fault domains
What availability domains and fault domains protect against, how to place HA pairs in single-AD and multi-AD regions, and which OCI services are regional, AD-bound or FD-aware.
OCI IAM policy cheat sheet
Policy syntax, the four verbs, resource families, dynamic groups, conditions and service policies, plus how to debug NotAuthorizedOrNotFound.
OCI launch failures: Out of host capacity, LimitExceeded and QuotaExceeded
Tell capacity shortages from tenancy service limits and compartment quotas, and get the instance launched with the right fix for each.
OCI Logging: enabling service logs and searching them during an incident
Which logs to enable before you need them, plus Logging Search queries for VCN flow logs, load balancer errors, Object Storage access and Audit events.
OCI Object Storage bucket baseline: private access, encryption, versioning and retention
Production settings for OCI Object Storage buckets, including visibility, IAM-scoped access, customer-managed keys, versioning, retention rules, lifecycle tiers, logging and Cloud Guard detection.
OCI Object Storage cross-region replication for DR
Create a replication policy from a source bucket to a DR-region bucket, set the required IAM policy, monitor last sync, and stop replication to make the destination writable during failover.
OCI Object Storage: BucketNotFound, 403s and pre-authenticated request problems
Why OCI returns 404 when you lack permission, how to check namespace, region and policies, and how to create and debug pre-authenticated requests for customers.
OCI VCN routing: Internet, NAT, Service and DRG gateways explained for troubleshooting
Which gateway each kind of traffic needs, how route tables and security rules interact, and how to use Network Path Analyzer to prove where a packet stops.
Setting up OCI Monitoring alarms with email and Slack notifications
Create a Notifications topic, write MQL alarm queries for CPU, memory, load balancers and databases, and avoid the common no-data and noisy-alarm problems.
Standalone OCI compute instance production build checklist
Shape, fault domain, boot and block volume settings, backups, Bastion access, OS Management, monitoring and the recovery behaviour you get from a single OCI instance.
OCI CLI essentials for daily operations
Set up the OCI CLI once, then use these commands to find resources across compartments, start and stop instances, and script output with JMESPath.
Data Platform
13 posts
Airflow basics: your first DAG, tasks, dependencies, schedules and how to test it locally
Write a small, correct Airflow DAG with the TaskFlow API, set a schedule without the classic start_date and catchup surprises, pass data between tasks, add retries, and test it with airflow dags test before deploying.
Data file formats basics: CSV vs JSON vs Parquet vs Avro, and which one to use when
What each common data file format is good and bad at, why Parquet is the default for analytics, where Avro and JSON still fit, and how to inspect and convert files with Python, Spark and DuckDB.
dbt basics: your first project with sources, models, ref, tests and docs
Set up a dbt Core project, declare sources, build staging and mart models with ref(), add built-in tests, choose materializations, and generate documentation, with the commands you will run every day.
Delta Lake basics: create a table, append, MERGE, and use time travel to undo mistakes
A first hands-on tour of Delta Lake. Create a Delta table, append and upsert data with MERGE, read the transaction history, travel back to an older version and restore it, with SQL and PySpark side by side.
Kafka basics: topics, partitions, offsets and consumer groups explained with CLI examples
The core Kafka concepts in plain terms. Create a topic, produce and consume messages, see how partitions and keys affect ordering, and read consumer group lag, all with the standard Kafka command-line tools.
Airflow connections and variables cheat sheet: CLI, environment variables, secrets backends and export/import
The Airflow CLI commands, environment variable formats and secrets backend settings for managing connections and variables, plus how to move them between environments.
\"The dashboard has no data for today\" - a triage runbook for late or missing data across the pipeline
When a report shows stale or missing data, work backwards from the report through the semantic model, warehouse tables, pipelines and source. Find the first layer where the data stops, fix it, backfill and tell users.
Kafka CLI cheat sheet: topics, consumer groups, configs and partition moves
The Kafka command-line tools on-call engineers use most, grouped by task. Check cluster health, manage topics and configs, inspect and reset consumer groups, and move partitions safely.
dbt node selection and CLI cheat sheet: run exactly what you mean
The dbt selectors, graph operators and CLI flags you need on support duty to rebuild one model, its downstream, only what changed, or only what failed.
Power BI scheduled refresh failed: gateway, credentials and timeouts
Read the refresh history error, then fix gateway connectivity, expired credentials, mismatched data source definitions, timeouts and capacity limits.
Right-sizing standalone Databricks compute: single-node clusters, job clusters and serverless
When a single-node cluster is the right choice, how to configure it, how it differs from multi-node job clusters and serverless compute, and policies that stop small workloads from burning large budgets.
Single-node Kafka with KRaft for dev and test: setup and the settings that differ from production
Run a single combined broker/controller Kafka node with KRaft for development and test, set replication factors that work on one node, and list the settings you must change before production.
Snowflake 'Object does not exist or not authorized': fixing role and grant issues
Work through the active role, the USAGE chain on database, schema and warehouse, future grants and ownership when Snowflake users can't see objects.
Databricks on Azure
11 posts
Azure Databricks costs missing tags in Azure Cost Management - cluster, pool, workspace and serverless tag propagation
Databricks spend shows as untagged in Azure cost analysis or chargeback reports. Find which tag path failed (pool, workspace, conflict, restart, serverless) and fix it.
Azure Databricks first steps: workspace tour, choosing compute and running your first notebook
A guided first hour in an Azure Databricks workspace. What each sidebar area is for, which compute to pick (serverless, all-purpose, job, SQL warehouse), creating a small cluster with auto-termination, and a first notebook that reads and writes a table.
Databricks Jobs basics: schedule a notebook, add retries, parameters and failure alerts
Turn a working notebook into a reliable scheduled job. Pick job compute, set a schedule and timezone, pass parameters, configure retries and timeouts, get alerts on failure, and run it as a service principal.
Databricks notebook basics: magic commands, widgets, dbutils and running one notebook from another
The notebook features you use every day. Language magics (%sql, %python, %sh, %pip), widgets for parameters, the most useful dbutils commands for files, secrets and notebooks, and how %run differs from dbutils.notebook.run.
Databricks SQL basics: SQL warehouses, the SQL editor, query history and a first dashboard
Create or pick a SQL warehouse, write and save queries in the SQL editor, read query history and the query profile when something is slow, build a simple AI/BI dashboard and schedule it, with sizing tips that keep costs down.
Unity Catalog basics: metastore, catalogs, schemas, tables, volumes and who can see what
The Unity Catalog object model explained for newcomers. The three-level namespace, managed vs external tables, volumes for files, and the handful of GRANT statements you need to share data safely with a team.
Databricks job alerts that reach on-call - failure, duration and streaming backlog notifications
Set up Databricks job notifications that page the right people on failure, slow runs and streaming lag, without alert noise from retries, skipped or canceled runs.
Databricks CLI cheat sheet for Azure workspace operations: clusters, jobs, files and grants
The Databricks CLI commands an on-call engineer actually uses on Azure - sign in, find and stop clusters, rerun failed jobs, move notebooks and files, and check Unity Catalog grants.
Unity Catalog grants cheat sheet - USE CATALOG, USE SCHEMA, SELECT, ownership and fixing \"permission denied\"
Unity Catalog needs privileges at every level - catalog, schema and object. Copy-ready SQL for granting read, write and create access to groups, checking effective grants, changing owners and fixing the most common permission errors.
Azure Databricks secret scopes cheat sheet: Key Vault-backed scopes, ACLs and dbutils.secrets
Create Key Vault-backed and Databricks-backed secret scopes, grant READ/WRITE/MANAGE, read secrets from notebooks, SQL and cluster config, and fix the usual "secret does not exist" and 403 errors.
Fixing file-not-found for good: a map of the Azure Databricks file systems and when to use each
Driver disk, DBFS, workspace files or Unity Catalog volumes? Which path works from Spark, Python, %sh and the CLI, how to move files between them, and how to retire DBFS mounts.
Databases
26 posts
MySQL 'Access denied for user' (error 1045): find which account the server matched and fix it
Read the user@host in the error, check which mysql.user row matches, and fix wrong passwords, host patterns, anonymous users, plugins, TLS rules and locked accounts.
MySQL basics: connect with the mysql client, create users, grant privileges and check what is running
First-day MySQL administration. Connect safely with option files, understand user@host accounts, create application and read-only users with least privilege, use roles, and inspect sessions and basic health from the client.
Oracle Database basics: SQL*Plus, CDB vs PDB, services and creating your first user
Connect to Oracle with SQL*Plus or SQLcl, understand the container database and pluggable databases, find the right service name, create a user with only the privileges it needs, and check basic health.
PostgreSQL first steps with psql: connect, explore databases and schemas, create a role and grant access
A practical first session in psql. Connect locally and remotely, use the backslash commands you need daily, understand databases vs schemas, create an application role with least privilege, and fix the most common connection errors.
PostgreSQL index basics: B-tree indexes, reading EXPLAIN, and why your index is not being used
What an index does, how to create one without locking a busy table, how to read a simple EXPLAIN plan, multi-column index order, and the common reasons PostgreSQL ignores an index you expected it to use.
SQL Server backup basics: recovery models, full, differential and log backups, and your first restore
Understand SIMPLE vs FULL recovery, take full, differential and transaction log backups with T-SQL and PowerShell, check that backups are usable, and practise a restore to a new database name before you ever need one.
PostgreSQL 'no pg_hba.conf entry for host' and password authentication failures: a fix-it guide
Decode PostgreSQL connection errors, check pg_hba.conf rules with pg_hba_file_rules, fix SSL, md5 and SCRAM mismatches, and reload safely without a restart.
Redis DBA cheat sheet: redis-cli, INFO, keys, memory, clients, replication and persistence
The redis-cli commands you reach for every week - connecting, health checks, finding keys safely, memory, clients, slow commands, replication, persistence, ACLs and cluster.
PostgreSQL roles and privileges cheat sheet - read-only users, app owners, default privileges and \"permission denied\"
Copy-ready SQL for common PostgreSQL access patterns - owner, read-write and read-only roles, default privileges for future tables, checking who has what, and fixing the usual permission denied errors.
SQL Server orphaned users after a restore or migration - finding and re-linking them to logins
After restoring a database to another server, users can't log in because database users point to login SIDs that don't exist there. Find orphaned users, re-map them with ALTER USER, and copy logins with their original SIDs to prevent it.
Creating a SQL Agent job in SSMS step by step, and the settings people forget
Walk through the New Job dialog in SQL Server Management Studio page by page, with the choices that matter for production. Owner, category, step flow, retries, output, schedule and notifications. Then script the job out so it can be rebuilt.
Database Mail works but SQL Agent sends nothing: enabling the Agent mail profile
Test emails from Database Mail arrive, but job failure and alert notifications never do. The usual reason is that SQL Server Agent isn't set to use Database Mail, or wasn't restarted after it was. Fix it in SSMS or T-SQL, then verify the whole path.
No job fails silently: setting failure notifications on every SQL Agent job at once
Find jobs with no failure notification and fix them all with one script. Also covers keeping new jobs covered automatically, writing failures to the event log for monitoring tools, and making sure the emails actually leave the server.
Pausing a SQL Agent job safely: disable the job, the schedule or a step?
Three ways to stop a SQL Server Agent job from running, and what each one does to manual runs, shared schedules and other jobs. Includes T-SQL for each, a check for jobs left disabled by accident, and a habit that stops them being forgotten.
SQL Server Agent for beginners: jobs, steps, schedules, operators and alerts explained
A first tour of SQL Server Agent for people new to SQL Server operations. What each building block does, how they fit together, and a first useful automated task built end to end.
SQL Server Agent questions every DBA gets asked: 20 short answers
Short, practical answers to the SQL Server Agent questions that come up again and again. Where jobs are stored, who they run as, why a job didn't run, time zones, Express edition, Azure options, and more.
SQL Server 'Login failed for user' (error 18456): read the state and fix the cause
The client always sees state 1. Pull the real state from the SQL Server error log, map it to the cause (bad password, disabled login, missing database, Windows-only mode) and fix it.
Bring order to 200 Agent jobs with custom job categories
Job categories are a free, built-in way to group SQL Server Agent jobs by team, application or purpose. Create a simple category scheme, assign jobs in bulk, use categories in reports, bulk enable and disable, and notifications, and avoid the built-in categories that other features depend on.
Day-to-day SQL Server Agent job management: the DBA's daily, weekly and monthly routine
A routine for keeping SQL Server Agent healthy. Daily checks for failures, long runs and disabled jobs, a weekly review of owners, notifications and history, and monthly housekeeping and testing. Each check comes with the query or dbatools command, and links to the deep-dive posts in this series.
Eight ways to run a SQL Server Agent job, and when each one is the right choice
Start SQL Agent jobs from SSMS, T-SQL, another job, PowerShell, sqlcmd, schedules, Agent alerts or an application. Includes how to start at a specific step, wait for a job to finish (sp_start_job doesn't wait), and give non-admins permission to run only the jobs they need.
Getting SQL Agent job failures into your monitoring tool through the Windows event log
Most monitoring platforms already read the Windows Application log. Configure every SQL Server Agent job to write an event on failure, write your own custom events from job steps, find the events with PowerShell, and forward them to Azure Monitor, SCOM or a SIEM.
Stop handing out sysadmin for job access: SQLAgentUserRole, ReaderRole and OperatorRole compared
SQL Server Agent has three fixed database roles in msdb that let people create, view or operate jobs without sysadmin. What each role can and can't do, how to grant them to groups, how they interact with job ownership and proxies, and how to review who has Agent access.
Why your SQL Agent history only goes back two days, and how to keep 90
SQL Server Agent keeps only 1,000 history rows by default, 100 per job, so busy servers lose history within days. Three ways to keep what you need. Raise the row limits, switch to time-based purging, or archive history to a table, with scripts and msdb sizing advice.
MySQL 'Too many connections' (error 1040): find the cause and fix it
Get in when every slot is taken, see which users and hosts hold connections, kill sleepers and long queries, and right-size max_connections and pools.
ORA-28000 account locked and ORA-28001 password expired: fix and prevent
Unlock Oracle accounts, find which host keeps locking them with failed logins, and use profiles so application accounts don't expire in production.
PostgreSQL 'too many clients already': fixing connection exhaustion
Find who holds the connections, clean up idle-in-transaction sessions, and fix the cause with connection pooling instead of raising max_connections.
AI & GenAI
19 posts
Embeddings and vector search basics: what they are, how similarity works, and a small working example
Embeddings turn text into lists of numbers where similar meaning means nearby vectors. Learn cosine similarity, why approximate nearest-neighbour indexes exist, and build a tiny semantic search over your runbooks with Python before reaching for a vector database.
GPU basics for LLM inference: VRAM, model size math, precision and which GPU you actually need
Estimate how much GPU memory a model needs from its parameter count and precision, add KV cache for context and concurrency, understand FP16, FP8 and 4-bit quantization, and read nvidia-smi to see what is really using the GPU.
LLM API basics: your first call, messages and roles, tokens, temperature and max tokens
Make a first chat completion call to Azure OpenAI and Amazon Bedrock from Python, understand system/user/assistant messages, what tokens are and how they drive cost and limits, and which parameters (temperature, max tokens) to set first.
nvidia-smi cheat sheet for GPU inference nodes: inventory, memory, processes, clocks, errors and topology
The nvidia-smi commands on-call engineers actually use on GPU inference nodes - what is installed, who is using memory, why clocks are low, ECC and row remap errors, and NVLink topology.
Prompt writing basics for IT ops engineers: clear instructions, context, examples and output formats
Practical prompt patterns for day-to-day operations work. Give the model a role, the right context and constraints, ask for structured output, use examples, and review results safely, with ready-to-use prompts for log triage, runbook drafting and change summaries.
RAG basics: how retrieval augmented generation works, with a minimal pipeline you can read in one sitting
The four steps of RAG (chunk, embed, retrieve, generate) explained with a small Python example over your own runbooks, plus the prompt that keeps answers grounded, how to show sources, and the first checks when answers are wrong.
Chroma cheat sheet: clients, collections, add/upsert, query with where and where_document filters, and housekeeping
The Chroma Python API on one page - choosing a client, creating collections with an explicit distance, add vs upsert, query and get with metadata and document filters, includes, updates, deletes, counts and the errors you'll hit most.
Pinecone cheat sheet: metadata filters, query, fetch, update and delete with the Python SDK
The Pinecone operations you use every day on one page - connecting by host, upsert, query with metadata filters and every filter operator, fetch, partial updates, deletes, stats and the metadata rules that cause most filter bugs.
Qdrant cheat sheet: collections, points, filters, queries and admin calls with curl and the Python client
The Qdrant calls you need day to day - create and inspect collections, upsert and delete points, filter syntax, the Query API, scroll, count, aliases, snapshots and health endpoints - side by side in curl and Python.
Azure OpenAI CLI cheat sheet: accounts, deployments, quota, keys, metrics and logs
The az commands, test calls, metric names and KQL you need day to day for Azure OpenAI - from listing deployments and quota to keys, network rules and diagnostic logs.
Microsoft Foundry model retirements, November-December 2026 - Claude, codex-mini, Llama 4 Maverick, gpt-4o, Mistral, whisper and tts
One table of the Foundry models that retire between mid-November and mid-December 2026, with replacements where Microsoft names one, plus what each retirement means for your app. Partner models such as Claude and Mistral follow a 12-month lifecycle and have shorter notice.
Amazon Bedrock CLI cheat sheet: models, test calls, guardrails, logging, metrics and quotas
The AWS CLI commands you need day to day on Amazon Bedrock. Find model IDs, send a test prompt, check guardrails and invocation logging, read CloudWatch metrics and look up quotas.
LLM API errors cheat sheet - what 400, 401, 403, 404, 408, 429, 500 and 503 mean on OpenAI, Azure OpenAI and Bedrock
One table per provider mapping LLM API status codes and error types to their usual cause and fix, plus which errors to retry, how to back off, and what to log so incidents are quick to diagnose.
Advisory: prioritising GenAI use cases - scoring value, feasibility and risk before building
Teams collect dozens of GenAI ideas and build the most exciting rather than the most useful. Describe each idea in a standard way, score value, feasibility and risk, check data readiness, start with a few high-value low-risk cases with clear success measures, and stop those that don't prove themselves.
Hugging Face model download fails: 401, 403 gated repos, timeouts and offline mode
Fix model pulls that fail at startup with 401, 403 gated-repo, timeout or not-in-cache errors, then pin revisions and pre-stage weights so pods never depend on the Hub.
Amazon Bedrock token usage spike: find which app is burning tokens with invocation logs
Turn on Bedrock model invocation logging, then use CloudWatch metrics and Logs Insights to find the role, model and team behind a token or cost spike.
Amazon Bedrock AccessDeniedException: model access, IAM and regions
Work through model access, IAM actions and resources, inference profiles, region availability, SCPs and VPC endpoint policies when Bedrock calls fail with access or validation errors.
context_length_exceeded and max token errors: fixing long prompts and cut-off answers
Understand context windows vs output limits, count tokens before calling the model, and trim chat history and RAG context so requests fit and answers aren't truncated.
Single-VM RAG proof of concept with Ollama and pgvector
Build a private RAG proof of concept on one VM, with a local model served by Ollama and an embedding model, document chunks in PostgreSQL with pgvector, and a small Python script for ingesting and answering questions. Ends with what to change before production.