Ring us. Don’t email.
The server is down, the database is offline or people can’t work. That’s enough to get started.
You don’t need to know what’s wrong. Tell us what people are seeing and when it started, and we’ll work out the rest. From the first minute you’ll be talking to a SQL Server specialist at CDE Systems, because we don’t have a call centre or a ticket queue.
Ring now, and while it rings, do the three things below.
Three things to do first
- Write down anything that changed recently. An update, a patch, a deployment, a restart. It’s often the quickest route to the cause.
- If a database shows as suspect or corrupt, leave it alone. Don’t detach it, restart the service or run a repair.
- Keep the error messages. The wording on the screen, and the SQL Server error log if you can get to it.
What happens when you ring
- You get straight through to a SQL Server specialist, and we go through what happened, when, and what changed.
- We tell you early whether this is a short fix or a long one.
- If it will help, we connect by remote support during the call. It’s one download, nothing gets installed, and you can watch.
- We get people working again first. That might mean restoring service, clearing a bottleneck or making the system safe.
- Then we find the underlying cause and tell you what will stop it happening again.
If it turns out to be a bug in SQL Server itself, we raise it with Microsoft Technical Support and keep working on it while they look.
It isn’t always the database
The fault is often somewhere nearby. It could be the application, a connection or an ODBC driver, a job that failed overnight, or a change someone made on Friday. We work on the whole system, from the database to the application on top of it, so you won’t be passed from one supplier to another while we find out.
Helpful to have, if you can
- Someone who can authorise us to connect. We need that in writing before we touch a live system, and an email during the call is enough
- A purchase order, if your organisation needs one. That can follow later and shouldn’t hold up the fix
Don’t let either of these stop you ringing.
Is this an emergency?
Ring now if the server is down, a database won’t come online, people can’t work, or data is at risk.
It can probably wait until tomorrow if it’s one slow report, one failing job, or something that has been irritating people for weeks. That’s SQL Server support and consultancy, and you get the same people.
Case Studies
Commercial Catering Service & Maintenance (field service)
Aire Valley Catering
Field service apps that work with no signal
Aire Valley Catering’s engineers work in commercial kitchens across the UK, often with no usable signal, and every job still has to be recorded. We built four production…
View case study
Transport and logistics
ACC Worldwide
A faster SQL Server system, noticed on day one
ACC Worldwide’s staff used one business system all day, every day, and it was slow. We worked on the SQL Server environment behind it. The speed-up was immediate,…
View case study
Travel and leisure (adventure travel and expeditions)
Jagged Globe
Keeping bookings, customer records and the website in step
Jagged Globe runs on an internal database and a booking website that have to agree every day, and sometimes they didn’t. We traced and fixed the transfers between…
View case study
Database Errors?
For corruption, failed restores or lost data, there’s more on SQL Server repair and recovery. For Access or another database, see emergency database support.