Meet Steve Stedman:
I’m Steve Stedman, a SQL Server consultant, software developer, author, speaker, and business owner based in the Pacific Northwest. I have worked with SQL Server for more than 35 years, starting with the early releases of the product and continuing through today’s SQL Server and Azure SQL platforms.
Stedman Solutions, LLC.
I founded Stedman Solutions to help organizations keep their SQL Server environments reliable, secure, and performing well. Our team provides managed services, performance tuning, health assessments, emergency database support, corruption repair, mentoring, and other specialized SQL Server services.
Much of my work involves solving difficult database problems. I enjoy investigating slow queries, blocking, deadlocks, configuration issues, failed backups, database corruption, and the mysterious performance problems that do not have an obvious explanation.
Through Stedman Solutions, I work with organizations ranging from small businesses to large enterprises. Some need ongoing monitoring and management, while others call when a critical SQL Server is slow, unavailable, damaged, or threatening an important business operation.
I believe proactive database management is far less expensive than responding to an emergency. Regular monitoring, verified backups, consistency checks, sensible maintenance, capacity planning, and early attention to warning signs can prevent many serious SQL Server incidents.
Database Health Monitor
I am also the creator and primary developer of Database Health Monitor, a SQL Server monitoring and diagnostic application that I have been developing for more than 15 years. It began as a collection of tools I needed for my own consulting work and has grown into a comprehensive application used by database professionals around the world.
Database Health Monitor helps DBAs and developers understand what is happening inside their SQL Server environments. It includes reports for wait statistics, blocking, deadlocks, job history, database growth, TempDB usage, query performance, configuration problems, backups, and many other areas that affect SQL Server health.
Teaching and Sharing
One of my goals is to make advanced SQL Server knowledge practical and approachable. I have created courses, written articles, produced videos, presented at user groups and conferences, and mentored database professionals who want to strengthen their troubleshooting and performance-tuning skills.
I am the author of a book about SQL Server Common Table Expressions. CTEs are one of my favorite T-SQL features because they can make complicated queries easier to organize, understand, and maintain when they are used correctly.
In 2015, I created the Database Corruption Challenge, an educational competition that gave participants damaged SQL Server databases and challenged them to recover as much data as possible. The challenge helped demonstrate that database recovery often requires creativity, careful investigation, and a much deeper understanding than simply running DBCC CHECKDB.
Steve Stedman: Always Building
I also enjoy building tools that turn complicated technical information into something useful and actionable. A monitoring product should do more than display charts—it should help the person looking at the screen understand what changed, why it matters, and where to investigate next.
Personal Growth Stories
Travel and Reflection
Projects
Creative Portfolio
Community Engagement Initiatives
Local Outreach Campaign
Other Stuff
Outside of database work, I serve my community as a volunteer firefighter and emergency medical technician. That experience has reinforced the importance of preparation, teamwork, calm decision-making, and having reliable systems in place before an emergency occurs.
I am also an avid boater and spend as much time as possible exploring the waters of Washington State and British Columbia aboard our Bayliner 4788, Off Leash. My wife, Marcia, our dogs, and I enjoy discovering quiet anchorages, visiting coastal communities, and sharing the occasional adventure that comes with cruising the Pacific Northwest.
This site is where I share pieces of my professional and personal life. You may find SQL Server articles, technical experiments, troubleshooting notes, software projects, boating stories, photographs, and observations gathered from decades of solving problems and learning new things.
Whether you arrived here looking for help with SQL Server, information about Database Health Monitor, a story from the water, or simply an answer to an unusual technical question, I hope you find something useful. If your organization needs help with SQL Server, I would be glad to learn more about the problem and discuss how my team and I can help.
