Michael Paycer — SQL Server articles and case studies
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SQL Server Articles & Case Studies

Practical writing from 20 years of SQL Server work — technical guides, real client case studies, and hard-won lessons learned on performance tuning, high availability, migrations, and the cloud. New pieces are added here as they publish.

Technical Guides

Articles & how-to guides

In-depth, practitioner-level guides on the SQL Server problems teams hit most. These are in progress — the first titles map to the questions clients ask most often.

SQL Server Performance Tuning: A Practical Health Check

How I run a SQL Server health check — wait statistics, Query Store, execution plans, and the index and tempdb issues that surface first. Coming soon.

Always On Availability Groups, Explained

Designing and troubleshooting Always On Availability Groups: listeners, quorum and witness, failover, and the mistakes that cause split-brain. Coming soon.

SQL Server Migration & Upgrade Playbook

A repeatable plan for SQL Server migrations and upgrades — compatibility levels, cutover, rollback, and validating performance after the move. Coming soon.

Azure SQL vs. AWS RDS for SQL Server

Choosing between Azure SQL (Database and Managed Instance) and AWS RDS for SQL Server: cost, HA, limits, and what breaks in the move to PaaS. Coming soon.

Taming Parameter Sniffing & Bad Plans

Why the same query is fast one day and slow the next — parameter sniffing, cardinality estimates, and safe fixes that don't just mask the problem. Coming soon.

Blocking & Deadlocks: Finding the Root Cause

Reading deadlock graphs and blocking chains, and the indexing and transaction changes that actually resolve them. Coming soon.

Case Studies

Real client results

Short write-ups of actual SQL Server engagements — the problem, what I found, and the measurable outcome.

Client Results Overview

A running summary of performance, HA/DR, and migration outcomes across engagements. Read the client results →

Cloud, ETL & API Automation

Automating data ingestion and reporting with SSIS, C#/.NET, and REST APIs on Azure and AWS. See the cloud & ETL work →

Performance Tuning Sprint

A focused engagement that cuts query times and stabilizes a struggling server. How the tuning sprint works →

Lessons Learned

Notes from production

Field notes and troubleshooting stories from real production SQL Server incidents — the kind of context you only get from doing the work. First entries coming soon.

Work With Me

Need SQL Server help now?

I offer remote and fractional SQL Server DBA and consulting services — performance tuning, HA/DR, migrations, and cloud database work. See what I do, review client results, or get in touch to talk through your situation.