Posts by Brent Ozar

Brent Ozar

2446 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.

The Very First Concern with SQL Virtualization: Licensing

Last Updated February 9, 2017

Brent Ozar

Licensing, SQL Server, Virtualization

Every single thing you do with a virtual SQL Server starts with one very important concern: how are you going to license it? The 3 Common Ways to License Virtual SQL Servers The software licensing section of my local library Developer Edition, by the guest – Developer Edition has all the power of Enterprise Edition,…

We’re Changing SQL Server Training Classes.

Last Updated January 17, 2019

Brent Ozar

SQL Server

Until now, SQL Server training usually meant registering for a course, showing up, hearing a lecture from a podium (often from someone who’s only done demos on their laptop, not production systems), working through a few workshops, and then going home with a bunch of ideas. It was like trying to ride a rollercoaster by…

Great new Microsoft KB article: Recommended SQL Server Updates and Trace Flags

Last Updated September 11, 2014

Brent Ozar

SQL Server

Got a high performance SQL Server 2012 instance? Check out the brand new KB article for recommended updates and configuration options for SQL Server 2012 and SQL Server 2014 used with high-performance workloads. Make sure you expand the following plus sign – this is where all the good stuff is stored: Expand this. After expanding it,…

Developers: Who Needs a DBA? [Video]

Last Updated June 21, 2016

Brent Ozar

SQL Server

You store data in SQL Server, but you don’t have enough work to keep a full-time DBA busy. In just half an hour, you’ll learn the basics of performance troubleshooting and index tuning from me – a recovering developer myself. I’ll show you the basic care and feeding of a Microsoft SQL Server instance and give…

Finding Unanswered StackExchange Questions with SQL

Last Updated August 29, 2014

Brent Ozar

SQL Server

You love Q&A sites like StackOverflow.com and DBA.StackExchange.com, but sometimes it’s hard to find interesting questions that need to be answered. So many people just sit around hitting refresh, knocking out the new incoming questions as soon as they come in. What’s a database person to do? Use the power of the SQL. Data.StackExchange.com lets…

I’m Speaking at kCura Relativity Fest 2014 about SQL Server

Last Updated February 9, 2017

Brent Ozar

kCura Relativity, SQL Server

I’m very proud to announce that kCura selected me to speak again this year at Relativity Fest, the annual gathering of e-discovery professionals. I’ve been doing a lot of Relativity work (here’s a recap of my blog posts about it) and I really like working with the company and the product. Heck, I even attended…

Book Review: Virtualizing SQL Server with VMware

Last Updated December 9, 2018

Brent Ozar

Book Reviews, Virtualization

tl;dr – I do not recommend this book. I was so incredibly excited when it was originally announced. A book published by VMware Press, written by prominent VMware, SQL, and storage consultants? GREAT! So much has changed in those topics over the last few years, and it’s high time we got official word on how…

Developers: You Don’t Need a DBA. I’ll Prove It.

Last Updated February 12, 2017

Brent Ozar

#SQLPass, SQL Server

That’s right, you heard me, and I’ll prove it on a really big stage. I’m honored to announce that I’ll be the first speaker at this year’s 24 Hours of PASS: Summit Preview Edition. On Tuesday, September 9th, join me for my newest session: “Developers: Who Needs a DBA?” Here’s the abstract: You store data in…

#SQLPASS Speakers: Here’s How to Improve Your Session

Last Updated February 12, 2017

Brent Ozar

#SQLPass, Writing and Presenting

This year there’s a couple of special challenges you need to keep in mind for projecting your beautiful knowledge out to the audience. Fixing the Contrast Levels PASS distributes a custom PowerPoint template – looks great this year – but the contrast level is extremely light. The template uses light blue and light gray text…

Using Triggers to Automatically Add Indexes

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Brent Ozar

Bad Idea Jeans, Indexing, SQL Server

Let’s say you’ve got a vendor application that creates tables, loads them, queries them, and drops them all the time. You can’t change the code. The tables involved desperately need an index in order to go faster, and they’re your biggest performance bottleneck. Enter DDL triggers. Regular DML triggers fire when you insert/update/delete rows in a…

Career Planning for DBAs: Your Next Two Years

Last Updated May 10, 2017

Brent Ozar

Professional Development

You’ve been doing this database thing for a while, and you’re ready to get serious about it. What’s the next step? Step 1: Define your specialty in one sentence. If you say you do everything, you compete with everyone. You want to be the only one they want. That means you’re: Actively sought-after Uniquely qualified A…

The SQL Server Components of kCura Relativity

Last Updated February 9, 2017

Brent Ozar

kCura Relativity, SQL Server

kCura Relativity is a software product for law firms to find interesting stuff to help their case. To get you up to speed on what it does, here’s some of the posts I’ve written about Relativity in the past: Performance Tuning kCura Relativity – explains what the product is for and how DBAs can help…

How to Back Up Terabytes of Databases

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Brent Ozar

Backup and Recovery, SQL Server

When you weren’t looking, your databases went and grew up. Now your backup window has grown so large that you’re about ready to open it and jump. Time to make a choice. The Native Way: Tuning SQL Server Backups You can theoretically pull this off by using a combination of tactics: Back up as infrequently as the…

Our Senior DBA Training Class: Attendee Feedback

Last Updated July 3, 2014

Brent Ozar

SQL Server

When we finish our courses, we ask attendees what they thought. Here’s what they said about our How to Be a Senior DBA class in Chicago: “I’ve attended many trainings. This is the most valuable I’ve ever attended.” – Tim Costello, Consultant “ROI for training is always a gamble. However, I felt like I received…

New sp_Blitz® v35 Checks for Unsupported and Dangerous SQL Server Builds

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Brent Ozar

First Responder Kit, SQL Server

News broke recently of a dangerous data loss bug in SQL Server 2012 and 2014, and Aaron Bertrand explained which patch levels are affected. It’s kinda tricky, and I’m afraid most people aren’t even going to know about the bug – let alone whether or not they’re on a bad version. I added build number checking into…

Our Sessions at the #SQLPASS Summit 2014

Last Updated June 25, 2014

Brent Ozar

#SQLPass, SQL Server

The session list has been published, and we’re excited to say all of us have been selected to speak at the PASS Summit again this year. Here’s our sessions: Are Your Indexes Hurting You or Helping You? – Jes Schultz Borland – Queries need your help! Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to…

How to Pick a Monitoring Tool

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Brent Ozar

Monitoring

Step 1: Make a list of 5 problems you’ve faced in the last couple of months that you needed alerting on. If you’ve got a help desk ticket system, look at the ticket types that occur most frequently and cause the most outage times. For me as a DBA, that might be: SQL Server service…

Our SQL Server Performance Troubleshooting Class: Attendee Feedback

Last Updated June 6, 2014

Brent Ozar

SQL Server

We’ve already told you what’s in our SQL Server Performance Troubleshooting class, but what did the attendees in Chicago think? “Great information. If I had to learn this myself, I would have taken years to understand these concepts.” – Kishore P., Application Admin “So, you’re pretty good at performance tuning? Yeah? Well, this course will…

A Manager’s Guide to Tuning Code

Last Updated May 23, 2014

Brent Ozar

SQL Server

In your business application, you have a slow screen or function. Your team is pointing fingers between the application code, the database, and the hardware. To make it go faster, here are your main options: Tuning Options – Mark All That Apply Check all of the options you’re willing to consider, and X out all…

What Amazon RDS for SQL Server Users Need to Know about Multi-AZ Mirroring

Last Updated February 10, 2017

Brent Ozar

Amazon Web Services (AWS), Database Mirroring

Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) now supports multi-availability-zone SQL Servers. This means you can have a primary database in one data center, and a secondary replica in another data center. Those Portland folks were always a little bit backwards anyway. When your primary server goes down, OR when the entire AZ goes down, you can fail…