Ah, sunset – time to kick back on the balcony, watch the ocean, and discuss SQL Server. You post questions at https://pollgab.com/room/brento/, upvote the ones you’d like to see me answer, and I discuss ’em:

• 00:00 Introductions
• 00:30 iAmGroot: Hello Brent, my friend has a VLDB and he’s asking what is a good strategy to implement in order to archive (offload) old data somewhere else (not on the same database) with minimal impact on the live database uptime; he also says he would avoid ETL jobs like the plague
• 01:42 Mehdi: Hi Brent! The estimated number of rows is equal to the actual number of rows. The server has enough memory. Why does the sort operator spill to disk? It is common in creating the nonclustered index operation. (It is not a query). The actual execution plan is parallel.
• 02:53 LLeopold: Hi Brent, can RCSI affect pure clustered index insert, and what tool (sp_blitz*?) can you recommend for troubleshooting slow inserts? Best regards, Igor
• 03:50 WorthTheTuningEffort?: Hi Brent, my friend wonder where you would put your effort first (from sp_BlitzCache results)? In tuning a query that execute 7K time per minute with average duration of 0 or in a query that execute 3 times per minute with average duration of 200. We have control of the app. Tks!
• 04:48 DefaultDBA: I have a question on how you would handle reducing parameter sniffing issues in Entity Framework. Our legacy system was all Sql Server objects (stored procs, views, etc) and with the new app, management overcorrected, and is using only EF (which is controlled by developers)
• 05:47 Frankie Carbone: Hi Brent, is there much value for the MSSQL DBA in learning Entity Framework?
• 07:07 Mr. Ed: Hi Brent, what are your favorite short-cut keys in SSMS? Do you assign any custom short cut keys? P.S. Please don’t eat me 🙂
• 09:06 Dave: Hi Brent, I recall you talking about naming conventions for indexes in Mastering Index tuning and how you now drop IX_ from the beginning however I can’t find it, any chance you can point me in the direction of the blog you mentioned?
• 10:10 DBA_Mufasa: Hi Brent, Do Microsoft really perform licensing audits? With everything they have going on, what are the odds they will send the “licensing police” to look after broke companies using SQL Developer as their production environment?
• 10:55 Roy: Hi Brent, If I’ve deleted a large amount of rows, will SQL Server stop expanding the database files (they are set to Autogrow currently) and re-use the free space it or is further action required? Thank you
• 11:10 Shamwow: Hi Brent, is there a good way to identify the UPDATE queries that are resulting in lock escalation for a given table?
• 12:10 Booked out SQL DBA: Hi Brent, management is hiring a cybersecurity officer and planning to implement the CIS SQL checklist. Some of those rules are no good. I’m planning to partner with this person and encourage cost vs benefit discussion on each rule. Do you have any advice on this approach?
• 13:45 Eckhart Tolle: Hi Brent, how is meditation going? Can you recommend some resources? PS: Stop fooling around on TikTok and be more in the Now! 1
• 5:10 Victor Von Doom: Üdvözlöm Brent, Is it a bad idea to parameterize SELECT TOP(@N) when used against large (several million row) tables?
• 15:30 The exhaustion is real: Do you have tips on time management? I struggle with balancing time with my kids, wife, work, and me time, in that order. I’m at a point in my life where it feels like I can’t go any further career-wise without sacrificing the things that I value more than work.
• 19:08 Hamid: Hi Brent, what is the most accurate way to calculate space required for tempdb when running checkdb on a multi terabyte database?
• 19:47 CacheBoy: Hi Brent, my friend was wondering what were your thoughts about SqlDependency and Service Broker for managing cache evictions on the application layer? Any recommendations for him for distributed L2 caches for apps (web site & utility apps) using EntityFramework? Thanks.
• 20:39 Tobias Fünke: Hi Brent, is the SQL estimated (not actual) query plan ever useful for anything?
• 21:30 Preben: Hi Brent, can you explain why SQL Server 2022 seem to be mostly focuses on improving GAM/SGAM updates? Do you think this is the true bottleneck they need to fix or do you have a different opinion?
• 21:50 Ricardo: Ola Brent, are parallelism deadlocks diagnosed / resolved the same as regular deadlocks? Love your sp_blitzlock.
• 23:06 Trushit: Do you have a recommendation for a T-SQL style guide?
• 23:22 Martin: Hi Brent, what’s the impact on performance of different isolation levels? Love your new beach episodes 🙂
• 24:05 Felix: Hi Brent, do you have any book recommendations for learning about all of the possible operators in a SQL query plan?
• 25:01 Jasmine: Hi Brent, will you be dressing as Disney’s Aladdin for SQL Bits?