We’re Discontinuing SQL ConstantCare and the Consultant Toolkit. Here’s Why.
About ten years ago, I sketched out an idea for a different kind of SQL Server monitoring tool: one that gathered data just once per day, and gave you a short email with a specific list of actionable tasks to make a difference in health and performance.
Richie Rump did an amazing job of building SQL ConstantCare out in the years since, building a solution that was rock-solid and scaled well to terabytes of monitoring data. Every day, we sent thousands of emails for SQL Servers around the world.
This month, we shut off sales and began decommissioning it. Here’s why.
AI is making it terrifying to host apps. It seems like every week, there’s a new AI-discovered exploit that blows new holes in the defenses of major companies, like the recent widespread npm compromise at Redhat. Companies are up against sophisticated, coordinated threats that strike against the very foundations of stuff we build with and atop. I think we’re going to be in for a very rough decade of security breaches, and in this timeline, I don’t really wanna host any repositories with diagnostic data from your database servers.
The world didn’t move to cloud the way I expected. I figured it was going to take 10 years, but like I wrote in my 2018 predictions for 2026, I figured that your default new database would be in a cloud platform-as-a-service database provider like Azure SQL DB or Amazon RDS. That simply hasn’t come true, and in a really weird twist, entire countries are now shifting away from the cloud due to political issues. When I look into the future right now, I think most small to midsize companies will be even less likely to move to cloud-based data hosting and processing.
We never really got the adoption we wanted. It was good enough to break even – even with a free tier of the product – and in the past, breaking even was fine. However, looking ahead to the future, I have my doubts about that financial situation continuing. I think cloud-based monitoring tool adoption is going to decrease, while the AI-driven security risks simultaneously increase, and suddenly even the prospect of breaking even isn’t appealing anymore.
I’m absolutely going to miss it. When I had spare time, It was fun and rewarding to open up my Power BI monitoring console, start poking around in the worst-performing SQL Servers, and send personalized, in-depth advice to customers and make a real difference in a matter of minutes.
So I’m also letting Richie go.
Richie and I have worked together here for over a decade, and he’s built a ton of stuff that gets used by database pros around the world every day: SQL ConstantCare, PollGab, the Consultant Toolkit, PasteThePlan, StatisticsParser, and the new StatisticsParser SSMS extension, plus a lot more stuff behind the scenes here.
For all these years, he’s been the perfect combination of architect, builder, tester, and troubleshooter. He’s also a ton of fun to work with! I would absolutely love to keep working with him, but as a tiny boutique database consulting firm, I don’t wanna be in the app business for the next few years. I’m not replacing him with AI – I couldn’t possibly, because he’s so damn good. This also means I’ve stopped sales on the Consultant Toolkit, and existing customers will get updates for the next year.
If you’re looking for an absolute top-notch data professional, I highly, highly recommend getting in touch with Richie at jorriss@gmail.com.
(Update: this has no impact on the First Responder Kit. I’ll continue shipping sp_Blitz and friends. Those are T-SQL, and I’ve always maintained those myself.)
Update 2026/07/30 – Richie landed at Straight Path. Congratulations to Mike, Richie, and everyone involved, and I’m excited to see what they build together.
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Hi Brent,
I’m sorry to hear this news.
Would you consider releasing the Consultant Kit as open-source software once the current support period ends? It’s an excellent tool, and it would be a shame to see it disappear due to the lack of ongoing support.
Kind regards,
Arturo.
The reality of open source is that someone still has to support it, and I don’t want to go down that road at this time.
I totally understand that. I was thinking of using dbatools to handle the connection and to execute queries, ImportExcel to export the data and the queries from the resource folder. I don’t know how much work it would be. But as I think the overall layout of the resulting Excel file is your intellectual property, I would not start a proof of concept before you change the license and publish the source code. If you ever think in that direction, please contact me.
You’re totally welcome to do that if you need it! Go for it, by all means. I won’t be contacting folks for things like this – like I’ve mentioned repeatedly here, I’m trying to do less work with this, not more, heh. Hope that’s fair.
Maybe I suggest you put it on Github and put it archive mode. This way you indicate to the world this is no longer maintained and you’re not providing any support.
This gives the chance for others to fork it and improve on it for the benefit of everyone.
The reality of open source is that someone still has to support it, and I don’t want to go down that road at this time.
I should add – I’m sure some folks reading this will say, “But I wouldn’t need any support. I am totally qualified to handle this on my own.” And for some folks, that’d be true! Unfortunately, you’re not the only ones who would have access to a public Github repo.
You wouldn’t believe the support questions I deal with on a weekly basis, hahaha. (No, this tool did not cause your database corruption, it just revealed your database corruption, and no, I’m not going to fix your database corruption for free.)
You don’t need to provide any kind of support. There’s no obligation. If they contact you privately, ignore them. If someone is willing to provide support, put their fork repo link in your readme file.
You can mention in the readme file in bold you’re not providing any more support. The repo is in archive mode which means it’s in read only mode. They can’t even open issues.
If these people don’t understand all of this, it’s their problem.
I hear you, and I really wish it worked that way, but as someone who gets over 300 emails/day on average, I need you to hear me: real life doesn’t work that way.
I do wish it did. I wish everyone was as knowledgeable and understanding as you, but that isn’t the case.
I’m really sorry to hear this. I didn’t use the Consultant Kit, but knowing it was available when a problem was over my head was a comfort. Thanks for all you do for the SQL Community.
My pleasure!
Sorry if I don’t undertand, but does this mean no more “sp_Blitz_xxx” procedures?
If so, this is the saddest day on Internet history 🙁
No, that’s the First Responder Kit, and that will continue.
The only constant seems to be change. Who would have thought that cloud adoption would be so intertwined in politics. No single standard for data privacy. It is a shame and your monitoring and other impacted platforms are departing. They will be missed.
Will this be leading up to your own retirement in the near future?
Cheers
No, no retirement on the horizon. I’m genuinely having a great time with this stuff, and getting ready to unveil new classes.
This makes me a tad misty for some odd reason. I wish you and Richie continued success.
Me too!
I’m sad to see this change, but I understand that times evolve. I’ve invested in this and will continue to do so because it provides a valuable all?in?one solution.
That said, I truly appreciate everything you’ve done for those of us who were thrust into the DBA world—your work has made a difference. I’ve been in this field for 25 years now, and resources like yours have been part of that journey.
Thank you for your contributions and support over the years.
My pleasure! We’ll keep working on the First Responder Kit, blogs, videos, etc, just stopping the apps.
Truly changing times we live in. Good luck to Richie and as always, thanks for everything to do, Brent
*Everything you do
Hey Brent – troubled times indeed . .
All that said, I suspect the drastic measures you have taken are proportionate for the drastic times we are already in – NOT entering; that ship has well and truly sailed – let alone how much worse it’s gonna get . .
I am SO glad I retired a year ago . . some may say perfect timing, but I do feel for those in our noble profession that are still going through hell.
I am also aware this is not your first schism – I recall you (apparently pretty amicably from my position of ignorance) parting ways with Kendra (2015?) and Eric (2018?) – perhaps Richie will be heartened at how well they have both done for themselves since . . It has to be said that working with you seems to do no harm to folks’ subsequent careers !!
ANYWAY . . keep on keepin’ on, brother – I will continue to follow your antics with great interest (as I have done for several decades) . .
Russ
Yeah, there have been several evolutions of the business over the years: buying out Tim Ford, buying out Kendra & Jeremiah, hiring Richie & more consultants, laying off the consultants, and now laying off Richie. The only constant is change!
Brent, Brent, Brent. The only thing Constant is care. Too soon?
TOO SOON, TOO SOOOOOON
Will the last version of the toolkit have a the timebomb? It’s really useful tool as an ISV to give to clients.
We’ve emailed the clients about that – we’ll be shipping them a version without the timebomb before their subscription expires, but we won’t be supporting it going forwards. If it works, that’s great, but if Microsoft ships something that breaks it, like a change to .NET, we won’t be providing another version.
Very pleased to hear this, which will give us a bit of time to sort ourselves out. Will this be both versions (i.e. the one that works with pre-2016 too), please? We do have some clients who are, shall we say, reticent about upgrading.
That’s a really good question about the pre-2016 – lemme see what I can do. No promises on that one, because we redid a lot of the code to simplify it, and I’m not sure we can still compile a pre-2016 version, but I’ll give it a shot!
any chance you would allow previous customers to get one more purchase of the “un-locked” version?
I’m going to ask a dumb question: if you found value in it, why aren’t you subscribed to it now?
Bummer, where I work the strategy is we will get compromised at some point.
We reverse engineer software for issues and we reduce access to a minimum and test the system by playing scenarios.
It is sad times when people are profiting from the misery they inflict on others.
I used the Consultant Toolkit, and I thought it was a good product but I was blocked from using it.
Thanks Richie for the products you created, I use them daily, and good luck.
Thanks Brent for the tools you have enabled idiots like me to use which makes me look like I know what I’m doing.
[…] Brent Ozar breaks the news: […]
Before ConstantCare is gone forever, can somebody (maybe Brent?) list out any checks that it does that aren’t obviously in sp_Blitz? Brent has good reasons for not wanting to support ConstantCare, but that doesn’t mean we can’t port things over to the FRK. Step one is a list, step two is making the GitHub issues, and step three is making the (presumably rather easy) pull requests.
I hope it’s fair for me to say that we’re aiming to do less work here, not more, so I need to take a pass on this.
I am saddened about this. I had used Consultant Toolkit as a way to document server health and give teams things to work on. i.e. make this query run better, etc. I was just about to “sell” updating the subscription.
Hi Brent,
Love your work. The First Responder Kit saved me quite a few times to be honest.
Last month I decided to try the Consultant Toolkit and honestly it made a HUGE difference for me for having all the diagnostic data in one spreadsheet laid out.
It’s really convenient.
Honestly sad that I only decided to try it now and not earlier…
Along the other commenters I read that there may be a possibility for clients that you ship a version without the time bomb in it.
Would that only be for longterm customers or also to newbies?
Would actually be sad to lose that nice gimmick now when the subscription year ends…
Thanks, glad you enjoy it! The download will be for anyone who currently has access to The Consultant Toolkit. Cheers!
You and Richie have created some amazing tools that have helped thousands of people. Thank you for all the work you’ve both put into these things. I can tell you statistics parser has saved my butt many times.
Thanks for the kind words, sir!
Very sorry to hear this
I know how much good you do helping everyone with their database servers and it’s a shame to hear this only ever broke even.
I’ve always liked SQL ConstantCare’s old premise of a single daily check-in with a short, actionable task list, so I can see why it was valuable. Since you’re discontinuing both ConstantCare and the Consultant Toolkit, what’s your recommended replacement for teams that depended on that workflow instead of building their own scripts?
Thanks, glad you liked it! I dno’t have a recommended replacement unfortunately.
Is there any plan for Paste The Plan?
That’s a good question. It’s a free service I provide, and it does cost me money to host, although not much at all, less than a few coffees a month. I’m inclined to leave it running for now until it breaks in a way that Claude Code can’t fix it, and at that point I would let it go.
With that skill set I predict Richie will be unemployed for a good, oooh, 10 minutes.