Posts by Brent Ozar

Fundamentals of TempDB

T-SQL Query Exercise: Generate Big Spills

Query Exercises
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When I was testing SQL Server 2025’s new ability to limit TempDB usage with Resource Governor, I wrote a few fun diabolical demos. One of them was to generate giant spills to TempDB, quickly. When you’re looking at an actual (not estimated) query plan, and you see a yellow exclamation point on a sort operator,…
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[Video] Office Hours in Roatan, Honduras

Videos
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My cruise ship took a detour to Honduras to avoid the hurricane. Let’s hang out on the beach and go through your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento. Office Hours: Ask Me Anything in HondurasWatch this video on YouTube Here’s what we covered: 00:00 Start 00:58 Dopinder: What is your opinion of the Github copilot support in…
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Office Hours Offshore

[Video] Office Hours at Sea

Videos
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This Office Hours episode comes to you from Virgin Voyages’ newest cruise ship, the Brilliant Lady, sailing through the Western Caribbean. We were originally scheduled to do the Eastern Caribbean, but Tropical Storm Melissa had other ideas, so they reworked our itinerary at the last minute. Let’s take your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento: Office Hours…
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[Video] Office Hours in My Backyard

Videos
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Let’s hang out in the backyard – as recently seen on Zillow Gone Wild – and take your top-voted questions from https://PollGab.com/room/brento. Office Hours: Hanging Out in My Backyard Watch this video on YouTube Here’s what we covered: 01:09 AussieDBA: I was saddened to hear of the passing of Andrew Clarke, who surely had the…
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Autogrowth disabled

TempDB Filling Up? Try Resource Governor.

TempDB
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TempDB is one of the banes of my existence. Anybody, anybody who can query your server can run a denial-of-service attack in a matter of seconds just by filling it up with a simple query: Transact-SQL DROP TABLE IF EXISTS #big_problem; CREATE TABLE #big_problem (filler VARCHAR(8000)); WHILE 1 = 1 INSERT INTO #big_problem SELECT REPLICATE('X', 8000)…
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Mastering Week

Announcing Free MASTERING Week 2025!

Company News
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You’ve been working with SQL Server, Azure SQL DB, or Amazon RDS SQL Server for years. You’re jaded. You’re confident. You’re pretty sure you know what you’re doing. You’ve never taken my Mastering classes because you’ve read the blog, watched the live streams, and figured you’ve pieced it all together. You can’t imagine there’s anything…
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[Video] Office Hours: Ask Me Anything About Microsoft Databases

Videos
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I’m back at home in Vegas, taking your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento on a hillside enjoying the fall desert weather. Office Hours: Back Home in Vegas Watch this video on YouTube Here’s what we covered: 00:00 Start 03:10 Bruce: Howdy! When, if ever, would you recommend implementing a SQL Server Central Management Server? 04:09 Impostor…
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Updated First Responder Kit and Consultant Toolkit for October 2025

First Responder Kit Updates
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This quarter’s release includes new checks for SQL Server 2025’s new memory pressure warnings, Azure SQL DB’s operations in progress, warnings about not using partitioned statistics where appropriate, plus bug fixes. Wanna watch me use it? Take the free class. To get the new version: Download the updated FirstResponderKit.zip Get The Consultant Toolkit to quickly…
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