Month: February 2009

We Agree: It’s Not My Problem

Last Updated February 24, 2009

Manager: “It’s come to my attention that the application performance isn’t as good as it should be. Users are complaining that it takes too long. Is it fair to say that every query sent to the database should finish in under ten seconds?” Developers: “Yeah.” Database administrators: “Yeah.” Manager: “Okay, we’re in agreement. Going forward,…

SQL Server 2010 Features Leaked! (Parody)

Last Updated July 8, 2011

Brent Ozar Unlimited Team

(If you found this page via a search, I’ve got good news – SQL Server 2010 will be called SQL Server 2008 R2, and the release date for all editions (including Express Edition) is May 2010. You can learn more about SQL 2008 R2’s new features here. I’m getting a lot of hits on this…

Syndication Hits the Newspaper Business

Last Updated February 24, 2009

Brent Ozar

I’ve blogged about how syndication is the future for news sites like SQLServerPedia and for magazines like GestaltIT, and now it’s time to talk newspapers. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is doing syndication and aggregation right on their home page. Blog site The Stranger reports that the PI has started running headlines that point straight out to…

The dangers of building linked servers on the fly

Last Updated April 19, 2009

Brent Ozar

Linked servers let users query different database servers from a central SQL Server. Some uses for this might be: DBA utility scripts – from a central repository server, we could query all of the servers in our environment to check for things like backup dates or configuration settings Consolidated reporting – we could gather results…

Twitter is What You Make It

Last Updated March 8, 2010

Brent Ozar

If you follow people that don’t interest you, then you won’t be interested in Twitter. If you follow people that interest you, then you’ll be interested in Twitter. It’s just that simple. Saying Twitter sucks is like saying the web sucks, or that music sucks, or that talking sucks. It just indicates that you’re unclear…

Communication Breakdown

Last Updated September 5, 2009

Brent Ozar

Here’s how I see the forms of communication and what they say about who’s sending the message: Twitter or forum message to the public: “I need help, and I’ll take it from anybody who’s available, inside or outside of my company.” Email: “I need you specifically, but it’s not urgent.” Instant Message: “I need you…

My First Computer

Last Updated February 17, 2009

Brent Ozar

That sounds like a Fisher Price toy, and come to think of it, my old Commodore 64 would be outgunned by a lot of toys these days. Commodore 64 Denis Gobo tagged me in a blog entry about our first computers and favorite games. He was one of those upper-class kids with his fancy-pants Commodore…

Getting Your Twitter Feed into SQL Server with Tweet-SQL

Last Updated September 5, 2009

Brent Ozar

If you’re reading this blog, you’re probably a SQL Server DBA or developer, and you’re probably into Twitter, so you’re probably going to be interested in Rhys Campbell‘s Tweet-SQL. Tweet-SQL is a set of SQL Server stored procedures that let you work with the Twitter API just by writing T-SQL code. You can do things…

Book Review: Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Management and Administration

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Brent Ozar

Book Reviews

Production database administrators have to know at least a little about a lot of things: Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Management and Administration How to install or upgrade SQL Servers How to build clusters How to plan for disaster recovery and high availability How to do performance tuning How to secure and protect databases The production…

More thoughts on career specialization

Last Updated February 12, 2017

Brent Ozar

Professional Development

K. Brian Kelley wrote a counterpoint to my recommendation that DBAs should specialize and focus their training. I respect Mr. Kelley a lot: he’s been in the United States Armed Forces. I don’t want to run into him in a dark alley. He’s a nice guy, and he’s got a lot of integrity, but that…

Upcoming SQL Server Online Events

Last Updated February 10, 2009

Brent Ozar

My job this month: writing! I’m writing a storage chapter for an upcoming SQL Server book, and I’m putting together a dizzying array of presentations for the next couple of months. My Upcoming Events page has the low-down on each one, but here’s where I’ll be in the next few months: February 12th – Perfmon…

Index Fragmentation Findings: Part 2, Size Matters

Last Updated July 13, 2017

Brent Ozar

Index Maintenance, SQL Server

Last week, I blogged about the basics of SQL Server index fragmentation: why it happens, how to fix it, and how often people are fixing it. I left you with a cliffhanger: it seemed that the frequency of defrag jobs didn’t appear to affect fragmentation levels: Databases with no index defragmentation were an average of…

Things you know now…

Last Updated February 12, 2017

Brent Ozar

Professional Development

Mike Walsh (Twitter, blog) tagged me with a great question today: what do you wish you’d have known when you got started? Oh, where to begin… Pick one thing and get really good at it. Every year, there’s going to be some sexy new technology. Your friends are going to be all over it, and…

Index Fragmentation Findings: Part 1, The Basics

Last Updated July 13, 2017

Brent Ozar Unlimited Team

Index Maintenance, SQL Server

We asked the community for index fragmentation information for data mining purposes, and the results are in – and interesting. Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll talk about some of the results we found in the field. What Is SQL Server Fragmentation? SQL Server stores data in pages. To make things easy, think of…

Putting ads on your old WordPress posts

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Brent Ozar

Blogging

In my series on How to Get Started Blogging, one of the first things I talked about was deciding what you’re blogging for: money, career, or something else. That series focused on blogging for your career, but if you’re interested in going after money, there’s a WordPress plugin that I’ve found helpful. Whydowork AdSense will…

Mirrors aren’t backups

Last Updated February 9, 2017

Brent Ozar

Architecture, Backup and Recovery, Database Mirroring

Are you using any of these technologies as a method of database protection? Database mirroring (keeping two database servers synchronized with the same data via SQL 2005/2008) Replication (copying records between databases) Log shipping (copying log files to another server and restoring them immediately) SAN-based mirroring (storing two copies of your database on two different…

Five Tips to Get Better Vendor Support

Last Updated April 19, 2009

Brent Ozar

So you’re completely pissed off that your third party software isn’t working, and you’re getting ready to call the vendor’s support line and let loose a stream of obscenities. I feel you: I’m using Symantec Antivirus too. <rimshot> But before you pick up the phone, stop and think about a few things that will help…