Unused indexes warrant an evaluation for several reasons. It can be a red flag that the MySQL Optimizer is not choosing to use the index, meaning that the index is not worth the effort to use. Additionally, unused indexes can take up valuable disk space. In MySQL...
Welcome to our blog, which is more than just a record of our experiences. It’s a resource.
Our blog is an invaluable resource for anyone struggling with the challenges of managing a database, applications, or clouds.
We understand the difficulties involved in troubleshooting, building, improving, securing, and operating these platforms,
and we’re here to share our insights and expertise with you. Browse through our collection of blog posts below,
and don’t hesitate to leave your comments and feedback.
Best Practices for Preventing Ransomware Attacks on Oracle Databases
Ransomware attacks have become a major concern for businesses across the globe. These attacks can cause significant harm to the affected organization's reputation, operational capacity, and financial stability. Oracle databases are no exception to ransomware attacks....
Protecting Criminal Justice Information
In order for XTIVIA to provide DBA managed services to governmental agencies where the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division (CJIS) Security Policy is required, CJIS compliance was necessary. CJIS is a set of standards for accessing criminal justice...
MySQL 5.6 Broken Replication Error 1236
Recently, I had a client that had a rack-mounted server that went into a hard lock on a Saturday morning. Monday morning, when it could be rebooted, MySQL received the dreaded "Last_IO_Error: Got fatal error 1236 from master when reading data from binary log: 'Could...
What Is Azure Front Door and How Can It Benefit Your Business?
In this blog, I will go over the benefits of Azure Front Door and how you can utilize it with a Web Application Firewall to allow your applications to scale with solid security. I will follow up with another blog on deploying Azure Front Door using a Web Application...
Prevent Xtrabackup Failures for MySQL after Linux OS Patching
Patching the operating system is essential to keeping your server secure and performing optimally. Patching is as easy as running an apt-get update and apt-get upgrade. However, this can cause some unintended consequences. For one, MySQL server will also be upgraded...
Page Splits and How to Optimize Index Space in SQL Server
If you're noticing a significant drop in performance, as well as frequent index fragmentation, you might have an issue with page splits, especially if your fill factor is set to default on all of your indexes. What Are Page Splits? Page splits occur when there is...
SQL Server 2022 Release – What Are We Excited About?
With the release of SQL Server 2022 for mainstream, we checked in with our DBAs to see what they are most excited about in the new version. We have all been waiting patiently for this release and are really happy to see it drop for mainstream support. Parameter...
Using Replication Monitor in Legacy (Pre-2016) SQL Server Management Studio
Is SQL 2016 older than SQL 2005? Or is your outdated SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) lying to you? Sometimes, the most interesting discoveries come from being lazy. Case in point: I was working with a few other DBAs on a client system having issues with...
Automating Log Rotation with Logrotate
Rotating MySQL logs is important because logs can take up a lot of disk space if left unmanaged. For example, an untuned database can lead to a lot of slow queries being logged. The error log can become large if it includes notes and warnings. Additionally, binlogs...









