I’m in Seattle this week for the PASS Data Community Summit. Before the pre-conference sessions started, I sat down to take your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento.

Here’s what we covered:

• 00:00 Start
• 02:29 MyTeaGotCold: How are you finding DbBeaver for Microsoft SQL Server? Like you, I find ADS buggy.
• 03:22 DBA_Mufassa: We have a SQL 2019 std VM that was already provisioned with 4 cores. We noticed antivirus is using CPU a lot. We want to add 4 more cores just for OS processes to use. VM total now 8 cores. Can CPU affinity in SQL be set to 4 cores so we stay compliant with Microsoft licensing?
• 04:33 SportsFan101: Do you have a list of DBCC commands that you still use? At a recent job interview, I was asked to name all the DBCC comamnds that I know or use. What do you think of this question?
• 06:34 VegasDBA: Hi Brent! I have 3 AGs. I’d like to put a copy of each on another SSRS instance. I inherited hundreds of SPs using linked servers for reporting and it’s been an issue with failovers and upgrades. When hosts become unavailable or change names, reports all fail. Recommendations?
• 07:53 Vishnu: Is AWS storage for SQL Server glacial slow like Azure storage for SQL Server?
• 08:52 Banhdu: What is your opinion of Elastic Query in Azure SQL DB for cross server searching? Is it as bad as linked server queries?
• 09:09 Jökull: SQL best practices assessment for Azure SQL VM, shows fragmentation warnings like so Medium – Remove fragmentation of dbo.Acme.IDX_Foo_DefID index. Current fragmentation level is 25.93% What is your opinion of these best practice suggestions? Is medium too high?
• 09:51 Rockwell: What is your opinion of Azure PostgreSQL? Does it compare favorably with Amazon’s offering?
• 10:45 Bandhu: What are your pros / cons of chat gpt vs copilot? Which commercial version has more bang for the buck?
• 11:32 Philippe Addelia: Hello Brent, I am wondering what the best platform would be to automate tests, such as unit testing, regression testing, post deployment testing and functionality testing. Would tSQLt be a good choice?
• 13:04 Oli the dba: Is AWS as frustrating as Azure ? It constantly feels like one step forward two steps back ! I find this non stop relating to performance and architectural designs. Need more perf? Sure turn the dial. Btw now your HA is gone. Sigh.
• 14:17 Håkan: Do you have, or do you know of a course that could work as an in-house certification for basic querying skills for DW purposes? Looking for something like the old Exam 70-761 (Querying Data with Transact-SQL), but could be a bit simpler.
• 14:56 ChompingBits: This is an entirely academic question but I was curious if the order of the ON clause in an INNER JOIN matters. I.E. If FromTable.Column = JoinedTable.Column performs better than JoinedTable.Column = FromTable.Column. I wouldn’t think it makes any difference, but was curious.
• 16:13 Nom: Have you seen an Azure SQL Database/Managed instance that was about to exceed the maximum storage space allowed by Azure? How would you go about resolving issues where the cloud storage limits are going to be exceeded sooner or later?
• 17:52 Crazy Harry: What’s your recommended way to periodically export data out of Red Shift into Azure SQL VM?
• 18:12 J.T.: I’ve been a SQL DBA for 9 years now and have not used A.I. tools at all professionally or personally. In a previous episode, you’ve mentioned that the money is well spent. What is one example of how you use the tools and/or do you have any suggestions on where to begin?
• 20:00 Ricardo: I need to improve a function that is already fast as executions/minute = 7350. What is the best approach to go from a blink to half-a-blink please?
• 20:56 SQLFumbler: A developer asked if I can help extend the message column in error logs. Deadlock entries only show 300 characters, truncating details needed to identify the SP causing the locks. E.g., Backup logs show over 400 characters. Is it possible?
• 22:05 Renzi: Do you have any helpful scripts / tools to find permissions granted in SQL for AD users that no longer exist?
• 22:40 Ricardo: Hi Brent. I was going to ask about my nervousness around changing hundreds of untrusted foreign keys and constraints (as detailed my sp_blitz). But as I was typing “Brent-in-my-head” piped up with “test in a test system” and “discus with the team first”. Thanks again Brent 🙂
• 23:36 SteveE: Hi Brent, What are the reasons that would cause long plan compilation times on a particular query
• 24:14 Q-Ent: Hi Brent. I was wondering how you create maintain and monitor all the links of type brentozar.com\go\***
• 24:34 Garry B: Are you going to PASS Summit?