How about some completely free SQL Server training?
Every weekday during the month of October, one of the modules from my Fundamentals classes will be absolutely free to watch. But you gotta watch it that day – you snooze, you lose.
To prep, block out a 30-minute window on your calendar, right now. Put a label on it, and bookmark this page. Each day, come back to this page, click on the day’s module, and get your learn on. Here’s what you’ll learn:
Fundamentals of Index Tuning
To follow along with the labs this week & next week, you’ll need SQL Server 2017 or newer, with the most recent Cumulative Update, the most recent SQL Server Management Studio, and the 50GB Stack Overflow 2013 database (10GB 7z file, extracts with 7-zip.) You don’t have to follow along with the labs, but I highly encourage it.
- Oct 3 – How to Design Indexes for Equality and Inequality Searches
- Oct 4 – Lab: Design Indexes for WHERE and My Solution
- Oct 5 – How to Design Indexes for ORDER BY
- Oct 6 – Lab: Design Indexes for WHERE + ORDER BY and My Solution
- Oct 7 – How to Design Indexes for JOINs
Fundamentals of Query Tuning
- Oct 10 – Building a Query Plan
- Oct 11 – How to Find the Right Queries to Tune
- Oct 12 – How Parameters Influence Cached Plans
- Oct 13 – Improving Cardinality Estimation Accuracy
- Oct 14 – Common T-SQL Antipatterns
Fundamentals of Columnstore
For this class, you don’t have hands-on labs, and you’re not meant to follow along with the demos. Columnstore is about bigger data, so I use the 2018-06 ~180GB copy of Stack Overflow (info page.) You definitely don’t need to grab that, but I’m mentioning it here in case you want to follow along with the demos.
- Oct 17 – How Columnstore Data is Stored
- Oct 18 – How Columnstore Data is Deleted, Updated, and Inserted
- Oct 19 – How Columnstore Data is Selected
- Oct 20 – How Columnstore Data is Rebuilt
- Oct 21 – Clustered Recap and Nonclustered Columnstore Indexes
Fundamentals of TempDB
For this class, you don’t have hands-on labs, but if you want to follow along with the demos, I’ll be using the same 50GB Stack Overflow 2013 database we used during the first two weeks.
- Oct 24 – How the Version Store Affects TempDB
- Oct 25 – How Temp Tables are Different from Regular Tables
- Oct 26 – How Table Variables Can Be Better Than Temp Tables
- Oct 27 – Temp Tables & Table Variables at Scale: PFS/GAM/SGAM Contention
- Oct 28 – How Memory-Optimized Table Variables Reduce Contention
- Oct 31 – How Execution Plans Use TempDB
Eagle-eyed readers will note that this isn’t all of the modules from each class, nor is it all of my Fundamentals classes. That’s because this whole thing is a diabolical mind trick, dear reader. I aim to get you hooked on the quality of my online training, and then come November 1st, when my annual Black Friday sale starts, you’ll be ready to get out your wallet – or your boss’s wallet – to get a Recorded Class Season Pass: Fundamentals, or Mastering, or the Level 2 Bundle when they go on sale.
These are recordings of live classes. In the live class, the questions & chat take place over Slack. You don’t need to join the Slack – I only monitor that chat room during the live classes. (I’m on vacation in New York at the moment, heh.)
Now go block out a recurring 30-minute window in your calendar every weekday in October. See you in class!
40 Comments. Leave new
I’m assuminig these are pre-recorded and can be watched at any time during that day? You mention a 30-minute window but no particular time, so just making double sure.
Yes, I’ll be just making the Instant Replays available that day.
Is there a tutorial somewhere for restoring the Stack Overflow db into the locally installed SQL instance?
There is! https://www.brentozar.com/training/vm/
I live to take those free trainings Thank you.
Is the time window 24 hours and which time zone you are using?
It’s not automated – I’ll be doing this as a human being, so I’ll leave some overlap between the modules. I’m not going to set an alarm at midnight, if that’s what you’re asking. 😉 Just log in and keep up, alright? See you in class!
Thank you Brent
I have bought the course just one hour ago…great
Thank you
Thank you for doing this. For those of us on UK time, what time (approx) should we expect to see these become available?
You’re welcome. Like I wrote in another comment, it’s not automated – I’ll be doing this as a human being, so I’ll leave some overlap between the modules. I’m not going to set an alarm at midnight, if that’s what you’re asking. ? Just log in and keep up, alright? See you in class!
In preparation for these, I downloaded the 180 GB database files. After completing overnight, the files could not be opened with 7-zip, win-zip or winrar. The magnet used was: https://downloads.brentozar.com/StackOverflow_Training.torrent
Is there a different magnet to use?
That’s the correct magnet. Odds are, you had internet connection problems overnight.
Hi, I know I am starting a bit late in the day but the Oct 3 content is timing out already, how long should it still be available?
Not sure what you mean by timing out. Could you be a little less specific? 😉
Apologies – When I get halfway through the Introduction and to the “Download the Slide Decks and Demos” the page shows “Lecture content locked – If you’re already enrolled, you’ll need to login.”
Thanks muchly
The free access doesn’t include the slides, just the videos. Enjoy!
Thanks
You bet!
Many thanks Brent for the free training first. I come here today and try to watch today’s videos but most of them are still locked, it says ” Enroll in class to unlock”. Please advise.
I advise you to reread the post more slowly, and pay attention to the dates next to each course. Cheers!
Brent, fyi, the 3rd video in today’s , “Oct 5 – How to Design Indexes for ORDER BY” is still locked.
Bob – I don’t understand what you mean 3rd video in today’s Oct 5. There is literally only one video per day. Click on the link next to the phrase “Oct 5”.
If you’re moving further through the post and clicking on Oct 6, I would humbly ask you to check your calendar.
On https://training.brentozar.com/courses/1336782/lectures/30676623
under ‘Designing Indexes for ORDER BY, there are three videos.
1. How to Design indexes for ORDER BY (22:55) – UNLOCKED
2. Lab: Design indexes for WHERE + ORDER BY – UNLOCKED
3. Lab: Brent’s Solutions (22:50) – LOCKED
Bob – read the post. It’s the words up above on this page. Not other pages. This page. Click on the link next to Oct 5.
Further comments will not be productive.
Enjoy the free training. Cheers!
All 3 videos in yesterday’s section were available, including the Lab solution video. Today’s lab solution video is not.
Ah, I see. the labs are scheduled for another day.
Sorry, I ‘assumed’ that when you said, “Every weekday during the month of October, one of the modules from my Fundamentals classes will be absolutely free to watch”, that meant the full module.
BobM – He is not making the entire section ‘Designing Indexes for ORDER BY’ free at the same time, but does seem to be pacing them (and overlapping availability) to give everyone across the globe their best chance to not miss anything.
Look more closely at the links next to Oct5 and Oct 6 above.
Hi Brent, are you planning to open “Fundamental of Parameter Sniffing”?
Eagle-eyed readers will note that this isn’t all of the modules from each class, nor is it all of my Fundamentals classes. That’s because this whole thing is a diabolical mind trick, dear reader. I aim to get you hooked on the quality of my online training, and then come November 1st, when my annual Black Friday sale starts, you’ll be ready to get out your wallet – or your boss’s wallet – to get a Recorded Class Season Pass: Fundamentals, or Mastering, or the Level 2 Bundle when they go on sale.
Hello Brent. I already followed all the free modules you provided from 3 to 6 october. Thanks a lot again for this. But the link of the 7th (today) links gives the following : Lecture content locked. If you’re already enrolled, you’ll need to login. it’s pointing to LAB : Design indexes for JOINS.
But if I click the module above it works… So maybe you pointed the link of the 7th of october to the lab and not the “presentation”… ?
Today’s lesson (Oct12 – How Parameters Influence Cached Plans) shows up as locked. 🙁
It’s 6:34 PM on PST, but it’s probably being locked on GMTs timezone, because my original post shows up as posted on Oct13 1:32AM, and tomorrow’s lesson is already up. :shrug
Yep, gotta keep up!
Hello, Brent!
I am learning your videos now. But, I dismissed the first two week lessons. How can I get back those?
Thanks in advance.
Fundamentals of Index Tuning
Fundamentals of Query Tuning
Great question! Click Training at the top of the site, and you can buy them from there. Cheers!
My gratitude to you for all you have done.
Thank you very much for the course.
I enjoyed every minute of your lecture .
Love these sessions you do – it might not be everything, but it gives you direction on what to look for.
The only part I fail at examples are always straight forward – and I get it, it’s meant to allow us simple people understand the concept – but I find it hard on some execution plans to figure out what relates to what in the query.
Thanks Brent, awesome as always. It would be great if you provided 3rd world prices for those of us in South Africa that have a crappy exchange rate 🙂
You’re welcome, glad you enjoyed it!