Posts by Brent Ozar

Brent Ozar

2460 posts

https://www.brentozar.com

I make Microsoft SQL Server go faster. I love teaching, travel, cars, and laughing. I'm based out of Las Vegas. He/him.

Free Webcast Next Week! What’s New (and Actually Good) in SQL Server 2022

Last Updated May 4, 2023

Brent Ozar

SQL Server 2022

It’s May 2023, and believe it or not, some of the flagship features in Microsoft’s latest version still aren’t ready for prime time yet. Good news, though: there are a few things that genuinely make your life easier with minimal work required on your part. Forget rewriting code, though – in this session, I’ll show…

[Video] Office Hours: 25 Pretty Good Questions

Last Updated April 26, 2023

Brent Ozar

Videos

You post questions at https://pollgab.com/room/brento and upvote the ones you’d like to see, and my job is to come up with accurate answers on the fly. Let’s see how I did. Here’s what we discussed: 00:00 Start 03:25 SickOf: Brent is there a backup product you can recommend? 04:38 OneEyebrowRaised: I’m noticing three significant shortfalls…

Classing Up SSMS is as Easy as 1, 2, 3.

Last Updated April 26, 2023

Brent Ozar

Humor

Step 1: go into Tools, Options and set this: Step 2, set this: Step 3, check this box: And presto, no one will ever again question whether or not you know what you’re doing.

Happy 21st Anniversary, BrentOzar.com. What’s Coming Next?

Last Updated June 1, 2023

Brent Ozar

Company News

It’s pretty cool to look at a blog post and see, “Last updated: 21 years ago.” It’s pretty fun to see old pictures of me in the media library, too. When I first started blogging over two decades ago, it wasn’t a business. I just did it because I enjoyed writing, sharing, and being part…

Open source image generated with Stable Diffusion, epiCRealism checkpoint, prompt: professionally color graded photo of ambulance, masterpiece, raw, hard focus, depth of field, nikon d850

Updated First Responder Kit and Consultant Toolkit for April 2023

Last Updated April 25, 2023

Brent Ozar

First Responder Kit Updates

This month’s big changes are performance tuning in sp_BlitzFirst & sp_BlitzLock. Part of the benefits of using the open source FRK is that when any of us work with *really* big/fast/ugly servers, we tune the FRK procs to work better in those environments – which means it’ll likely work better in yours, too. For example,…

How to Go Live on SQL Server 2022

Last Updated April 25, 2023

Brent Ozar

SQL Server 2022

You’re planning to migrate to SQL Server 2022, and you want your databases to be faster after the migration. This is NOT a blog post about how to migrate – that’s the same as it’s been for a long time. Go build the new 2022 servers, and use log shipping or database mirroring to sync…

[Video] Office Hours: Live Q&A

Last Updated April 14, 2023

Brent Ozar

Videos

This one’s broken up into two parts because I took a bio break mid-stream: 00:00 Start 03:04 Clippy: Hey Brent, you are the best!!! Can you share us more about your roots? What’s the origin of your family name and where does it comes from? 04:15 I_ALSO_WANT_A_FERRARI: Hi Brent, first of all thank you for…

What Does Setting the SQL Server Compatibility Level Do?

Last Updated April 19, 2023

Brent Ozar

Configuration Settings, Videos

If you right-click on a database in SQL Server Management Studio, you get an option to set Compatibility Level at the database level: When you upgrade SQL Server or you want to improve performance, which option should you choose? Should you always go with the newest compatibility level? If you have an old application, can…

[Video] Office Hours Speed Round: 21 Answers in 15 Minutes

Last Updated April 18, 2023

Brent Ozar

Videos

HONK HONK! It’s time for a fast round of answers to concise questions y’all posted and upvoted at https://pollgab.com/room/brento. Here’s what we covered: 00:00 Start 00:19 TheyBlameMe: Hi Brent. What is your view on using Dacpac diffs vs “old style” manual update scripts for deploying DB schema changes in dev-test-prod? 00:52 Alex: Hi boss, I…

Office Hours Speed Round, Easy Text Answers Edition

Last Updated April 18, 2023

Brent Ozar

Production Database Administration

Some of the questions y’all post at https://pollgab.com/room/brento have easy one-line answers. Let’s knock ’em out: George: Hi Brent, what recently has been the most challenging/surprising/new-to-you performance issue you have encountered? SQL Server 2019’s slowdowns. I spent days working on that. RoJo: Have you used Distributed AG as a way to upgrade major versions of…

[Video] Office Hours: Ask Me Anything About Azure SQL DB & MSSQL

Last Updated April 8, 2023

Brent Ozar

Videos

Post your questions at https://pollgab.com/room/brento and upvote the ones you’d like to see me answer. Here’s what we discussed today: 00:00 Start 01:40 prasad: Hi Brent, I want to become a full fledged database architect. I have been reading and practising lot of stuffs here and there, but no certain path. I also subscribed once…

SQL ConstantCare® Population Report: Spring 2023

Last Updated July 7, 2023

Brent Ozar

SQL Server Population Report

Ever wonder how fast people are adopting new versions of SQL Server, or what’s “normal” out there for SQL Server adoption rates? Let’s find out in the spring 2023 version of our SQL ConstantCare® population report. Out of 3,002 monitored servers, here’s the version adoption rate: The big 3 versions are all within 1% of…

Announcing Live Office Hours on Wednesdays & Thursdays

Last Updated April 8, 2023

Brent Ozar

Company News

It’s time for summer school! I’m doing live streaming on my Twitch channel on Wednesdays & Thursdays this summer, and the recordings will go live later on my YouTube channel. I’ll take questions from PollGab, do live coding, work on the First Responder Kit, and write blog posts. The stream will start at 8:15AM Pacific,…

What SQL Server People Should Know About Amazon Aurora Serverless

Last Updated April 5, 2023

Brent Ozar

Amazon Web Services (AWS), PostgreSQL

You, dear reader, are most likely a Microsoft SQL Server user – either a DBA or developer. Set your pencil down for a second because you’re not going to learn about a Microsoft product today, nor are you going to learn something that is going to be immediately useful to you in your job. Today,…

[Video] Office Hours: Ask Me Anything at Sea

Last Updated March 27, 2023

Brent Ozar

Videos

It was a dark and stormy morning, on the last day of my Panama Canal cruise. Before I perished, I sat down to answer your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento. Here’s what we covered: > 00:00 Start 00:36 ClippyTheDBA: Hi Brent. How you keep up-to-date with technology in general and in SQL Server specifically? 02:56 Björk:…

Who’s Hiring in the Microsoft Data Platform Community? April 2023 Edition

Last Updated May 17, 2023

Brent Ozar

Who's Hiring

Is your company hiring for a database position as of April 2023? Do you wanna work with the kinds of people who read this blog? Let’s set up some rapid networking here. If your company is hiring, leave a comment. The rules: Your comment must include the job title, and either a link to the full…

[Video] Office Hours: Ask Me Anything About SQL Server in Costa Rica

Last Updated March 18, 2023

Brent Ozar

Videos

Off the coast of Costa Rica, I went through your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento. Here’s what we covered: 00:00 Start 00:30 gotqn: In SQL Database we have “sp_invoke_external_rest_endpoint”, but in SQL Server 2022 still have not. Is using SQL Server Machine Learning (sp_execute_external_script) a good alternative or nasty hack? 02:19 Chase C: If you had…

Is SQL Server 2019 More CPU-Intensive Than SQL Server 2016?

Last Updated March 28, 2023

Brent Ozar

SQL Server 2019

I’m running into something that I’m having a hard time believing. A client was hitting CPU issues during load testing, and they swore all things were equal between their SQL Server 2016 and 2019 environments. The 2019 box was having CPU pressure issues that didn’t show up on the 2016 box. I’ve played this game before,…

This is the Last Week of Free PowerShell Training.

Last Updated February 4, 2023

Brent Ozar

PowerShell

You’ve been working hard all month to get through our newest class, Fundamentals of PowerShell for DBAs. This week, it all starts to come together as you put together PowerShell plus SQL Server to automate tasks on a regular basis: March 27, Mon: Objects and Namespaces March 28, Tues: PowerShell and the SQL Server Agent March…

Office Hours: Questions That Didn’t Make the Cut

Last Updated March 23, 2023

Brent Ozar

Production Database Administration

Sometimes, y’all post questions at https://pollgab.com/room/brento and they don’t get a lot of upvotes, and reading through ’em, I bet it’s because other people don’t quite understand what you’re asking. I think there might actually be a good question at the heart of it, but … I’m just not sure what it is, and it needs…