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Posts by Brent Ozar

Brent Ozar
2453 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.

Cutting to the Chase

Brent Ozar
Professional Development
4 Comments
People come running into the DBA’s corner office (okay, windowless cube) with all kinds of issues and they’re not sure what’s a database problem, what’s an application problem, or what is just a general complaint. Here’s some examples of vague requests: “Man, this application is so slow.” “The profit numbers on this report don’t seem…
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HIPAA vs SOX for database administrators

Brent Ozar
0
A database administrator asked me, “If I’ve been working at a company subject to Sarbanes-Oxley regulations, and I needed to learn what was different about HIPAA regulations, what would be the difference between the two?” First, in my answer, don’t think about credit card data or customer social security numbers.  That has its own security…
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Param.txt

SQLIO Tutorial: How to Test Disk Performance

Brent Ozar
SQL Server, Storage
Storage is a black box, right?  The SAN admins ask how much storage space you need, you tell them, and then they give it to you.  They don’t tell you how fast (or slow) it is, they don’t know whether it meets your needs, and they probably don’t know where the bottlenecks are. It’s time…
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Oracle announces cloud computing support

Brent Ozar
Oracle
0
I don’t have much insight to add here, but it’s something my readers are probably into: Oracle now supports running on Amazon EC2.  They’ve got prebuilt EC2 instances that you can just turn on, a cloud management portal, and licensing options. This is such a cool time to be a database administrator.  I can’t wait…
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Leaving Caroline Collective

Brent Ozar
3 Comments
In May, I leased the first desk at the Caroline Collective, a new coworking space near downtown Houston. Open Door Policy Today, I moved my stuff back out. I left because of something simple: I need too much “stuff” to do my job.  In order to do my job, I use a few pieces of…
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Why DBAs should care about storage virtualization

Brent Ozar
Storage
2 Comments
Vendor hype aside, storage virtualization is really expensive technology that few shops really use.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the technology, but seriously, it’s expensive.  And that’s just the hardware/software – try hiring somebody with storage virtualization experience – hoo, boy.  But something is coming that’s changing the game, redefining what storage virtualization means.…
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When will you use SQL Server 2008 in production?

Brent Ozar
5 Comments
The last several times I’ve spoken at user groups, I’ve asked for a show of hands to find out when people plan to put their first SQL Server 2008 instance in production. I ask because it helps me write better presentations – there’s no sense in me talking about something you don’t plan to use,…
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Spend a Day with the Experts – Oct 14 – Redmond, WA

Brent Ozar
0
So you’ve been dying to meet me, but your job at Microsoft won’t allow you to leave the Redmond area?  Or maybe you’re tired of hearing all those bright people at Microsoft speak, and you want to hear a rank amateur fill your head with gobbledygook? Or maybe you just want free breakfast and lunch?…
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Steel Cage Blogmatch: How to Configure a SAN

Brent Ozar
SQL Server, Storage
13 Comments
Jason Massie and Brent Ozar work with SQL Server for a living and write blogs for fun, but that’s where the similarities end.  Jason’s a fan of shared storage SANs: putting SQL Server data and logs on the same set of physical hard drives.  Brent’s a cheerleader for dedicated configurations where the arrays are separated…
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The Glamour of International Travel

Brent Ozar
3 Comments
Saturday It’s Labor Day weekend.  I would love to hang out and relax, but I have a plane to catch.  I pack my laptop bag and a single large suitcase.  I’d love to take a carryon too, because it’d be a nightmare if my luggage didn’t arrive with me.  I’m going to be checking the…
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Surprise! I’m on the intrawebz!

Brent Ozar
4 Comments
Me! I opened the company intranet this morning and got a surprise – I’m featured front and center.  Looks like I’m going to have to change my browser’s home page for the next couple of weeks, because I can’t face this first thing in the morning without coffee. When I first started at Quest Software,…
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LiteSpeed v5.0 is out!

Brent Ozar
0
Presto chango, version five. This one was in the oven long before I arrived at Quest back in May, and I’ve been using it for the last couple of months.  Some of the big improvements are the ability to query backup files just like databases, the Backup Analyzer that automatically tests a bunch of compression…
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Recommended Books for SQL Server DBAs and Developers

Brent Ozar
Book Reviews, SQL Server
93 Comments
Here’s my favorite SQL Server books for 2016-2014: T-SQL Fundamentals – (updated for SQL 2016) – don’t be fooled by this “fundamentals” title, because everybody who writes T-SQL queries needs this book. It’s the manual we should have been given when we started, and everyone’s going to learn something about concurrency, performance, and updates here. T-SQL Querying…
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Had a photo shoot by Tracy Manford

Brent Ozar
6 Comments
I had a photo shoot yesterday by Tracy Manford to get some new head shots for presentations and whatnot, and I’m absolutely thrilled with how they came out.  Hopefully you, dear reader, have never seen me before, because her photos make me look gooood.  I’ll write more about this later (I’m on a short trip…
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Microsoft DPM 2007 review

Brent Ozar
Backup and Recovery
30 Comments
I spent some time last week digging into Microsoft Data Protection Manager 2007, Microsoft’s solution for SQL Server backups, and I’m going to share some of my findings here with you, dear reader. “But You Work For Quest Software! You can’t write a Microsoft DPM review!” Yeah, disclaimer time – I work for the people…
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SQL Server 2008 Release Date: Today.

Brent Ozar
3 Comments
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 has been released, and the release date was Wednesday, August 6.  Awesome – less than three years since SQL 2005, thereby meeting their goals and keeping the whole Software Assurance benefits worth the money. You can download it now if you’ve got an MSDN subscription – those are a great deal…
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