Ever wonder how big your database estate is compared to others? Whether you've got more servers, more databases, more workloads, or more problems?
Well, if you're one of my SQL ConstantCare® customers, check your email: our first set of badges just went out!
Nah, not necessarily. SQL Server's query optimizer behavior keeps changing with every freakin' version. Let's illustrate it with a simple query against the Stack Overflow Users table:
[crayon-6ab410f688a49441484925/]
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, that means:
Today marks the official birthday of Microsoft SQL Server 2025. Here's where to download the evaluation version. Here are the top things you wanna consider as you talk to your managers, developers, and end users. The feature differences between 2025 Enterprise and Standard have been revealed, and the news for Standard Edition folks is spectacular:…
I love SQL Server, and I'm excited for the release of 2025. I think the query processing keeps getting better, which means your apps are gonna go faster, with less code changes. The AI stuff is a little fluffy, and I don't think time will be kind to it, but I totally understand why Microsoft…
SQL Server 2025 and .NET 10 bring several new improvements to storing JSON natively in the database and querying it quickly. On the SQL Server 2025 side, the two big ones are the new native JSON indexes and the new JSON_CONTAINS function. Let's see their improvements in action. On the .NET 10 side, EF 10…
Before SQL Server 2025, if you want to store JSON data in Microsoft SQL Server or Azure SQL DB, and you want fast queries, the easiest way is to:
Store the data in an NVARCHAR(MAX) column (because the native JSON datatype didn't arrive until SQL Server 2025)
Add a computed column for the specific JSON keys we'll want to query quickly
Index those keys
Query it using the JSON_VALUE function
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.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aD7FnCRzJL8
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:
In this quarter's update of our SQL ConstantCare® population report, showing how quickly (or slowly) folks adopt new versions of SQL Server, the data is very similar to last quarter:
SQL Server 2025: exactly 1 server being monitored, heh. God bless y'all for giving it a shot this early.
SQL Server 2022: 25%, up from 24% last quarter
SQL Server 2019: 43%, was 45%
SQL Server 2017: 10%, was 11%
SQL Server 2016: 13%, was 12%
SQL Server 2014: 5%, same as last quarter
SQL Server 2012 & prior: 1%, same
Azure SQL DB and Managed Instances: 2%, same
Short story: what the title says.
This is especially problematic for folks who merge multiple databases onto the same server. All it takes is one badly-behaving application to leave its transactions open, and suddenly it causes the rest of the databases to run TempDB out of space. That app's transaction might not even be changing anything, and it might have never caused problems for that application before - but once it shares a TempDB with other apps, it causes cascading problems.
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.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKd30ILb7ys
In the Query Plan Pop Quiz, questions 2 and 3 asked you about what the sizes of arrows on query plans meant. The good news is that almost all of you got Question 2 right, but the bad news is that the vast majority of you got Question 3 completely incorrect, and the saddest part of that is that you've been using that inaccurate knowledge to guide your query tuning - and wasting your time.
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:
In last week's Query Plans Pop Quiz, the first question was, someone hands you these two queries and you get their estimated plans to decide which query to tune. Perhaps you get the estimated plans from SSMS, or from sp_BlitzCache, or from your monitoring tool. The question was, which query should you focus on tuning?…
SQL Server Management Studio 22 Preview 3 is out, and it brings with it a new Query Hint Recommendation tool. Start by highlighting the query you want to test, then click Tools, Query Hint Recommendation Tool. It slides out a new pane on the right hand side: The maximum tuning time defaults to 300 seconds,…
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.
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.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXwD-nJ2K3c
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.
To get the new version:
Question 1: Pick the Problematic Plan: someone hands you a pair of queries, and you get the estimated query plans. (Perhaps you get the estimated plans from SSMS, or from sp_BlitzCache, or from your monitoring tool.) Which one of these two should you focus on tuning first, Query 1 or Query 2?
Question 2: on an estimated plan, what does the thickness of the colored arrow represent?
