[Video] Office Hours Silent Edition

Okay, I, uh, forgot to unmute the microphone for this one:

So here are the answers in text form instead. <sigh> Thank goodness it was a speed round!

Mike: When Brent Ozar’s certification exams for SQL Server will be available? Looking forward to having exams like “Fundamentals of QT”, “Mastering Server Tuning” etc, so you can pass in the testing center. 1st cert. exams on performance tuning for SQL Server in the world. When?

Never. I don’t wanna write exams.

RoastMe: Hi Brent. You have earned the reputation for roasting people for asking certain questions with talent and entertainment. Do you think some will ask a question to get a roast? Do you think people watch just for the roasting?

I think some people do, but I think the purposely trolling questions don’t get that many upvotes.

MyFriendConsulting: Hi Brent, In consulting, do you recommend doing all the business/clients and technical work myself at the beginning (say first 1-2 years) or do you recommend hiring someone (maybe part-time) to meet clients and handle the business part?

Don’t hire people until you already have more incoming business than you can handle.

Mike: What do you think will be the consequence of events, if Microsoft releases SQL Server 2022 with PSPO implementation as it is in its current form ?

People who need monitoring won’t use 2022 compat level.

Index_It_All: Hello Brent, We are looking to determine how to classify all our SQL Servers into small, medium,Large and Very Large. We want a default template so we can onboard clients databases. What metric would you use to measure what should be a small, large or very large client Database?

Read this.

Will Marshall: How do you decide when a given a single stored proc should be refactored into multiple child stored procs?

We cover that in my Mastering Parameter Sniffing class.

Yourbiggestfan: Hi Brent, I know you have spoken about SQL22 changes, but the ‘Percentile and persist mode mem grant fdbck’ improvment scares me as MS have smartly overcome issues with Mem grant fdbck (where it only relied upon last exec). I fear avg DBA would no longer be needed in 10 yrs time.

If you’re content with being average at something, then yes, you’ll find that you’re probably not going to be needed no matter what your job title is.

Mehmet: What are your thoughts on the use of surrogate keys vs natural keys in new SQL tables?

I don’t think about that. Get this book.

Espen Eriksmoen Løke: Hi, I have been working with SQL Server query tuning for many years and think I am quite skilled. I would like to go to classroom training for and advanced course both to sum up and learn new things. Tired of online courses and Teams 🙂 Something to recommend?

Read this.

Ralph: I love your simple explanations, e.g. recently “what’s fragmentation” at SQLBits! Do you have anything like that for how LOB data is handled and how it affects performance if we use e.g. nvarchar(max) extensively?

Yes, watch my free How to Think Like the Engine course.

Don’t blame Anthony: How did you handle reviews for new SQL code back in the day?

I didn’t. Companies are rarely staffed well enough that people can review every new line of code. Instead, focus on the top resource-consuming queries.

Gang of DBAs: Is there a resource like the Gang of Four Design Patterns book for Data Modeling? The data model is such an important piece of my development, but I always struggle and feel like there must be people who’ve solved these issues before.

I don’t even know what that is.