For a full minute, Lena just leaned back in her chair. The hum of the servers didn’t sound like a lullaby anymore. It sounded like applause.

With trembling fingers, she appended the magic words:

Provider=MSOLEDBSQL19;Server=10.0.0.5;Database=Payroll;Trusted_Connection=yes;

The error was simple, yet maddening.

But then she remembered the footnote. The one buried on page 47 of the Microsoft documentation.

She hit F5.