You posted questions at https://pollgab.com/room/brento, upvoted the ones you’d like to see me cover, and I did the needful:
Here’s what we covered:
- 00:00 Introductions
- 01:19 chandwich: Hi Brent. I’ve been unsuccessful in my attempt to convince my employer I need formal SQL training. I help manage hundreds of customers’ SQL Servers and Applications, but they refuse to pay for my training. Should I leave? Should I just pay for it myself? Any advice?
- 03:45 Mehdi: Hi Brent! Do you recommend using parallel hint?
- 04:16 DBAInHiding: You’ve mentioned often that there’s usually only one person in the DBA role for a given company (larger corporations may have teams instead). If you’re a solo DBA, how can you take a restful vacation or any time off when you need it most?
- 06:07: DBA_Willing_to_learn: Hi Brent, Hope you are doing well. I would be interested to know about one feature in SQL server 2022 which would interest you the most and why ?. Thank you in advance for answering my question.
- 07:16 Neil: Hi Brent. We’re a growing SASS provider. We have no dedicated DBA resource, but recognize this is something that is required. Any recommendations about what kind of things we should be looking for?
- 08:25 Sean C: Do you have any “petty” or “ridiculous” hills that you will die on regarding anything in SQL or SQLServer?
- 11:54 Mark E: When you were a DBA, what were your top distractors and time wasters?
- 12:42 Jim: We have a stored procedure running on SqlAzure that brings back a list of hotels for a given city. The first time it executes against a particular city it is very slow 14-20 seconds. Subsequent runs querying the same city are fast 2-5 seconds. Having trouble figuring out why.
- 14:08 Carrie Jeffries: Discontinued database engine functionality in SQL Server Standard going from 2014 – 2019?
- 15:21 Juan: Do you have any common gotcha’s to avoid when adding a computed column to a table?
- 16:46 Yitzhak: Do you have a suggested way to see how much space a long running active transaction is currently contributing to the transaction log? Worried about maxing out transaction log.
- 20:44 seems_like_avi: What are the downsides of using TVFs from a performance perspective? It seems like they can reduce code duplication and make a code base much easier to maintain and expand. When would you recommend using TVFs vs not using them?
- 21:54 Lenny: How do you decide whether to start with query tuning or index tuning on SQL Server with occasional performance issues?
- 23:23 MikeNM: Regarding your post about SCOM the other day. Can you recommend any decent guides to setting up SCOM for SQL? I have been both SCOM admin and now a DBA and trying to convince my peers that moving away from SQL e-mail alerts isn’t more trouble than it’s worth.
- 24:34 Maksim: What are the pros / cons of doing encryption using SQL TDE vs using SAN level encryption?
- 26:30 SQLPadawan: Hi Brent, I just read your “Data Model for Gender” post…(Sorry if this is the wrong place to bring this up) You still have a follower around here. I just will continue to read your blog and go thru your training. You’re the best SQL Server teacher and career model 4 all of us.
- 27:05 RoJo: Want to upgrade from sql2016 with Sync-AG to latest version. What is best method to upgrade, for least downtime and stability (and AG issues) ? Any gotchas?
- 28:15 IWantToBeYouWhenIGrowUp: I’m interested in switching to a MacBookPro as my primary development/work laptop but have some reservations with a major platform shift. How is the Mac laptop performing? Are you using the M1 version or Intel? What VM manager/container are you using to host locally?
- 30:05 Lenny: Who is the Brent Ozar for all things related to SQL Server CI/CD? 30:036 Anatoli: What are the tell tale signs that your business has outgrown log shipping? Is AG the next step up for SQL HADR?
- 31:39 Zeratul: Is it therefore wise to boost CTFP from the default value of 5 to something like 50?
- 32:47 missing the updates thoughts: hi brent! my friend was wondering why you don’t post blog-style posts on sqlserverupdates.com anymore with every new CU like you used to. miss reading your thoughts every CU!
- 33:55 Jimin: Do you see any new SQL 2022 box checking features that Microsoft included for competition reasons?
- 35:38 Gomer: Would DBA Brent ever leave a higher paying job for a lower paying job?
9 Comments. Leave new
@DBAInHiding – Been there and it was tough. I recommend Xtivia. It is a company we use for secondary as-needed support. They are very easy to work with and affordable. Not only do they offer remote DBA help, you can use hours for their shared services like Share Point, PowerBI (I think) and many other technologies. We’ve used them in the past 2 years. I wouldn’t recommend them if they weren’t good.
Regarding code formatting: I couldn’t disagree more. Have you ever tried to make sense of code which looks like it was vomited onto the page? Formatting code correctly make is much easier to read for the next person, in some cases, it’s more valuable than comments. And telling me that I can always format it myself… well that’s like me telling the wife “If you don’t like the mess I left in the kitchen, you can always clean it up”. Not very helpful.
Use Red Gate SQLPrompt. Is hitting Control-K, Control-Y really that hard for you? That much of a burden?
If so, I can understand why your wife is so upset with you. 😉
I uninstalled Red Gate SQL Prompt, found it was more trouble than it was worth, and it kept crashing my SSMS instance. Leaving your code in a state that makes it easy for the next person is jsut common courtesy. If it’s that easy to do, then the person writing the code should do it once, rather than the person reading the code doing it every time.
Simon – we’re going to have to agree to disagree, but thanks for stopping by and lecturing me. 😉
You’re right. I have to disagree with your philosophy that the best way to handle someone who refuses to do their own job adequately is to do their job for them.
Regarding 100% fillfactor. I’ve heard you say this before, so oneday I ran a test. I added an index to a non-sequential column, 100%, and after increasing the number of rows by 0.1%, the avg_page_space_used_in_percent was just north of 50%. But when I started with a fillfactor of 80, this didn’t happen at all. 100% fillfactor on non-sequential indexes causes the very problem you’re trying to solve.
OK, cool, that’s one test. For something a little more exhaustive, and to learn how to do this kind of testing in detail, check this out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_07ZP52HxfE
Regarding common gotchas for computed columns: If you use a function in the computed column definition, then you should be aware that the function cannot be modified or removed without removing the computed column.