Month: May 2013

Moving between databases is hard enough, try using multiple databases in the same application and you might start thinking you’ve gone insane. Different application demands for accessibility, redundancy, backwards compatibility, or interoperability make this a possibility in the modern data center. One of the biggest challenges of running a heterogeneous database environment is dealing with…

Is Your Code an English Garden or Ikebana?

Last Updated May 18, 2013

Erika loves having fresh flowers around the house. Every Saturday morning, I pick up a bouquet at a farmer’s market or grocery store and put it in a vase for her. I’m slowly upping my game by learning more and more about the art of arranging flowers. When I say flowers, I bet you think…

Database Quick Fire Challenge

Last Updated May 13, 2014

Celebrity cooking shows are popular around Brent Ozar Unlimited®. We watch Top Chef for the creative cooking as much as the human drama. Contestants on Top Chef face huge challenges – they’re working alone, have a limited set of tools, have a fixed set of ingredients, and operate under ridiculously strict time guidelines. What makes…

51 Questions About Your Conference Session Submission

Last Updated November 25, 2021

#SQLPass, Writing and Presenting

Jeremiah and I presenting in Atlanta Whether you’re just getting started writing a presentation abstract, or whether you want to double-check it, or whether you want to understand why your abstract wasn’t picked, it’s always the right time to step back and ask some big picture questions about your conference submission. The blessing and the…

Monitoring SSD Performance

Last Updated February 13, 2017

SQL Server, Storage

Everyone wants to make sure they’re getting the best performance out of their solid state storage. If you’re like a lot of people, you want to make sure you’re getting what you paid for, but how do you know for sure that the drive is performing well? Watch that Average The first way to monitor…

sp_Blitz® v22: Output Results to a Table, Better Comments, and an App

Last Updated June 7, 2015

Our free server troubleshooting tool, sp_Blitz®, just learned some new tricks. If you call it like this: EXEC dbo.sp_Blitz @OutputDatabaseName = ‘DBAtools’, @OutputSchemaName = ‘dbo’, @OutputTableName = ‘BlitzResults’ It will create the table DBAtools.dbo.BlitzResults (if it doesn’t already exist) and insert the results. The table includes columns for the server name and the check date,…

Indexing Wide Keys in SQL Server

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Kendra Little

Indexing, SQL Server

Key length matters in SQL Server indexes. It’s a best practice to keep your index keys as narrow as possible, and SQL Server enforces a maximum key length of 900 bytes on most “normal” clustered and nonclustered indexes. But what happens if you want to optimize the lookup of a wide column? You’re not necessarily…

If there's such a thing as Data Science, why not Data Sauce?

3 Steps to Finding Your Secret Sauce

Last Updated May 13, 2014

Kendra Little

If there’s such a thing as Data Science, why not Data Sauce? It’s difficult to define why some things are wildly successful in a sea of forgettable products. Some recipes have a mysterious umami that comes from a subtle dash or two of magical sauce. In business and technology there’s an indefinable edge that sets…

Write a Note and Shoot Yourself Today

Last Updated May 2, 2013

SQL Server, Writing and Presenting

When I’m writing a presentation or blog post, I often start here: 2004 Brent It’s a photo of me in my office in Dallas, Texas in 2004. When I look at that picture, I remember everything like it was yesterday. I can talk at length about everything on the bookshelf, on my desk, in my…

The Basics of Database Sharding

Last Updated May 1, 2013