Posts by Brent Ozar

Brent Ozar

2782 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.

Surprise! I’m on the intrawebz!

Last Updated August 28, 2008

Brent Ozar

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,…

SQL Server 2008’s new Central Management Server

Last Updated March 4, 2018

Brent Ozar

SQL Server

Got more than one DBA? Want to make your life easier? You might want to configure a Central Management Server. This is useful for fast-changing shops where there’s a lot of servers added and removed. At my last company, we had a hard enough time telling everybody when we’d finished adding a new server, or…

LiteSpeed v5.0 is out!

Last Updated September 5, 2009

Brent Ozar

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…

SQL Server on a SAN: Dedicated or Shared Drives?

Last Updated January 17, 2019

Brent Ozar

SQL Server, Storage

A reader wrote in and asked: We’re running SQL Server with blades and a NetApp SAN. We have a few hundred databases from 100mb to 200gb. All data, logs, tempdb, etc. are located in the same 30-disk pool. Apparently this was setup using NetApp’s guidelines. NetApp recommendations are to put everything in one aggregate, or…

SQL P2V: What Really Killed the Dinosaurs

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Brent Ozar

Virtualization

Say we have a physical database server sitting over there in the rack. For the sake of discussion, let’s pretend it’s a slightly older model, a HP DL380 G2 with a couple of P3 CPUs, 4gb of ram, and six local 36gb drives. The storage is broken up into a mirrored pair of drives for…

Recommended Books for SQL Server DBAs and Developers

Last Updated February 14, 2017

Brent Ozar

Book Reviews, SQL Server

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…

Had a photo shoot by Tracy Manford

Last Updated August 13, 2008

Brent Ozar

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…

Microsoft DPM 2007 review

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Brent Ozar

Backup and Recovery

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…

SQL Server 2008 Release Date: Today.

Last Updated May 3, 2009

Brent Ozar

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…

Change of travel plans

Last Updated November 1, 2009

Brent Ozar

This weekend, we changed our travel plans and headed back home to Houston instead of driving on out to California. We probably should have checked the maps a little more carefully – particularly this map: Tropical Storm Edaeiou(and sometimes y)rdo is heading right for Houston tomorrow. Both Ed and I have conflicting reservations at the…

Long live the DBA

Last Updated September 5, 2009

Brent Ozar

Jason Massie (aka StatisticsIO.com) wrote a blog post this week called The Death of the DBA. He talks about why the coming cloud computing craze creates career chaos. I have the exact opposite opinion: I can’t wait for databases to move toward the cloud because it makes database administrators even more vital. Reason #1: Cloud…

8 DBAs talk about their jobs

Last Updated February 12, 2017

Brent Ozar

Professional Development

OdinJobs.com interviewed eight different DBAs from completely different backgrounds and careers. The one thing we’ve got in common is that we blog, but outside of that, we’ve got wildly different points of view about the career and what we like about SQL Server. I shall now copy/paste Jason Massie’s hard work at listing each person’s…

SQL Server support on virtual servers

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Brent Ozar

Virtualization

The Microsoft knowledge base article on SQL Server virtualization support just got an update. Here’s the interesting part: “Versions of SQL Server after SQL Server 2005 will incorporate full support for running on a supported guest operating system that is installed on a Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V virtual machine.” That means SQL Server 2008 will…

Taking a cross-country road trip

Last Updated July 26, 2008

Brent Ozar

We’ve packed up the Honda and we’re heading out this morning on a road trip of epic proportions: Just over 5,000 miles. Erika, Ernie (our miniature Schnauzer) and I are driving from Houston to Memphis today, overnighting there. On Sunday we’re continuing up to Muskegon, Michigan to spend some time with Dad and Caryl, my…

Speaking at PASS Camp 2008 in Germany

Last Updated February 12, 2017

Brent Ozar

#SQLPass

I love my job! When a new version of SQL Server comes out, database administrators want to know what features will make an immediate difference in their lives. They want a very fast recap of what they need to do first, what they need to plan for, and what to tell the rest of their…

Important SQL Server Data Services warning

Last Updated November 1, 2009

Brent Ozar

An important email just came out from the Microsoft SSDS team about this week’s upgrade. The second bullet point in the impact alert is especially important, and everybody needs to take note. Here’s a screenshot: Got that? Good. To be a good DBA, it’s important to be able to read Wingdings.

Tracking the Chicago-Mac race with GPS

Last Updated September 5, 2009

Brent Ozar

A friend of mine is competing in the 100th annual Chicago-Mac race, a sailboat race up Lake Michigan from Chicago to Mackinac Island. This year they gave out GPS tracking devices so you could follow your favorite boat’s progress during the race. Now I’m not saying anybody cheated, but the route of the Hannah Frances…

The Wine Trials: a wine book for donut lovers

Last Updated August 24, 2009

Brent Ozar

Last night, the author & editor of The Wine Trials held a release party at the Caroline Collective, the Houston coworking office where I lay my weary laptop. Robin Goldstein and Alexis Herschkowitsch talked vino, signed books and raised glasses. I liked them, and I liked the book, and I’ll tell ya why. I’m just…

Storage virtualization for SQL Server: friend or foe?

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Brent Ozar

Storage

Storage virtualization is a really slick SAN technology that does for SANs what VMware did for servers: it abstracts away the underlying hardware to make management easier. Multiple SANs can be swapped around back and forth behind the scenes without affecting any servers that store data on those SANs. It’s nowhere near common yet –…

Yes, SQL injection attacks do exist

Last Updated July 17, 2008

Brent Ozar

And here’s a Craigslist ad to prove it: