Posts by Brent Ozar

Today is literally it. This is the end of an era. One of the most popular things I sell is my Live Class Season Pass, which gives you two cool things: The ability to drop in on any live online class that I teach for a year straight, plus The ability to stream the recordings,…

My Black Friday sale ends tomorrow.

Last Updated November 19, 2021

The countdown timer is on: you’ve got less than 48 hours to grab one of my massively discounted bundles and get the SQL Server training you’ve always wanted at a price your manager can live with: Level 1: Fundamentals$395per year(save $1,390)Recorded Class Season Pass: FundamentalsSQL ConstantCare®Consultant ToolkitBuy NowLevel 2: Mastering$895per year (save $3,285)Recorded Class Season…

[Video] Office Hours: Black Friday Edition, Ask Me Anything About SQL Server

Last Updated November 27, 2021

Yesterday, I finished setting up my new Apple MacBook Pro with the new M1 Max processor and did its first live stream on my Twitch channel to see how the hardware held up. I was tickled pink – worked great! Here’s what we covered: 00:00 Introductions 03:48 TheGreatFode: Hi Brent, have you ever seen cases…

[Video] Office Hours Speed Round: 17 Answers in 11 Minutes

Last Updated November 18, 2021

Not all of your questions need detailed answers. In this speed round, I race through 18 answers in 11 minutes: Here’s what we covered: 00:11 UnfortunatelyPostgresIsCheaper: I know you’ve answered that, as far as u know, there isn’t a ‘Brent Ozar’ of Postgres, but as you spend a lot of time with it u must know…

[Video] Office Hours on the Balcony Part 2

Last Updated November 18, 2021

Picking up right where we left off yesterday, we continue down through the not-so-highly-upvoted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento. Here’s what we covered: 00:00 Introductions 00:22 Andrew from Canada: To Null or not to Null? That is the question. On tables with 100M to 1B rows and with several columns that contain data 20% of the time, should…

NOLOCK Is Bad And You Probably Shouldn’t Use It.

Last Updated November 18, 2021

Locking, Blocking, and Isolation Levels

I’m waiting for the YOLOck option. When you put NOLOCK in your query, SQL Server will: Read rows twice Skip rows altogether Show you changes that never actually got committed Let your query fail with an error This is not a bug. This is by design. To understand what happens, read these blog posts in order:…

Free Live Class This Week: Fundamentals of TempDB

Last Updated November 9, 2021

You’ve been working with Microsoft SQL Server for a couple of years, and you know a little bit about TempDB. You’ve heard that temp tables and table variables have different performance characteristics than regular user database tables, and you’ve heard that you’re supposed to have multiple data files. You’re wondering what exactly goes on behind…

[Video] PASS Data Community Summit Keynote: 5 Ways the Cloud Impacts Your Career

Last Updated November 17, 2021

Professional Development, Videos

Succeeding as a data professional is all about placing the right bets at the right times. The more you know about what’s happening around you, the better bets you can place. I’ve been working with databases for over two decades. In this session, I’ll invite you into my home to have a frank, honest discussion…

[Video] Office Hours on the Balcony Part 1

Last Updated November 9, 2021

I hang out on my balcony in San Diego with a gin & tonic and a bunch of your highly upvoted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento. Here’s what we covered: 00:00 Introductions 01:33 FishCakesForTea: I have designed a filtered index for a specific query but SQL Server doesn’t use it unless I move the columns in the…

SQL Server 2022 Slogan Contest Winners

Last Updated November 17, 2021

SQL Server 2022

Last week, I challenged y’all to come up with slogans for SQL Server 2022. I have to confess that when I came up with the idea for that blog post, I thought y’all would take it seriously. I thought you’d come up with ideas that were meant to show off Microsoft’s hard work. I should…

Free Live Class This Week: Fundamentals of Columnstore

Last Updated November 9, 2021

Your report queries are too slow. You’ve tried throwing some hardware at it: your production SQL Server has 12 CPU cores or more, 128GB RAM, and SQL Server 2016 or newer. It’s still not enough to handle your growing data. It’s already up over 250GB, and they’re not letting you purge old data. Will columnstore…

Is Microsoft SQL Server 2022 a Big Release?

Last Updated November 11, 2021

SQL Server 2022

Normally when y’all post questions here on Pollgab, I let ’em pile up and I eventually do an Office Hours webcast where I talk through my answers. I check in on the list every couple of days just out of curiosity, though, and one of ’em jumped right out at me. The question, posed by…

Updated First Responder Kit and Consultant Toolkit for November 2021

Last Updated November 8, 2021

First Responder Kit Updates

Just like you, the First Responder Kit has been pretty much stable for the last couple of months. There have been a few small changes, but nothing too big. There are a few pending pull requests that folks are working on around an open source setup checklist, better support for Ola Hallengren’s scripts, and a new…

Contest: SQL Server 2022 Needs a Slogan.

Last Updated November 8, 2021

SQL Server

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Now that Microsoft has announced that SQL Server 2022 is coming, it’s time for us to talk about a shameful truth: SQL Server doesn’t sell itself. Remember when everybody was talking about how MongoDB was Web Scale™? Or when Oracle was Unbreakable™? Even if you were making fun of it, the point was that you…

There is a Ton of Free SQL Server Training Coming Up.

Last Updated November 8, 2021

Conferences and Classes

If you don’t get smarter soon, it’s your own damn fault. Oh sure, I’m running a Black Friday sale, but even if you’re as broke as SSMS’s live query plans, you can still afford this free stuff I’m doing: Weds-Thurs: Quest Empower 2021 – free conference, and I’ve got a session with Pinal Dave on…

[Video] Office Hours Manhattan Edition: Ask Me Anything About SQL Server

Last Updated November 5, 2021

I sat down on the edge of Brooklyn, overlooking the Manhattan skyline, to take your highest-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento. Here’s what we covered: 00:00 Introductions 00:42 Dylan: Do you have any experience with sys.dm_db_tuning_recommendations? To be clear, I am not referring to Azure SQL or Automatic Index Tuning, but rather Query Store Forcing/Unforcing plans automatically.…

[Video] Office Hours Speed Round: Quick Answers

Last Updated November 4, 2021

Think fast! Not all of the questions at https://pollgab.com/room/brento have long-winded answers. In this 5-minute session, I crank through a bunch of straightforward questions: 00:00 Introductions 00:32 Mike: Hi Brent, the delete job is blocking for around 20 minutes our update or inserts calls from api which is expected to be completed with few seconds.…

Who’s Hiring in the Database Community? November 2021 Edition

Last Updated November 9, 2021

Who's Hiring

Is your company hiring for a database position as of November 2021? Do you wanna work with the kinds of people who read this blog? Let’s set up some rapid networking here. If your company is hiring, leave a comment. The rules: Your comment must include the job title, and either a link to the full…

What’s New in SQL Server 2022

Last Updated November 4, 2021

SQL Server, SQL Server 2022

Today at Microsoft Ignite, Microsoft started dropping new details on the next version of SQL Server, 2022. Here’s a 13-minute video from Bob Ward explaining and demoing some of the new features: The new features include: Failover back/forth from SQL Server 2022 and Azure SQL DB Managed Instances, including restoring versionless databases from Azure SQL…

5 Ways to Measure a Query

Last Updated November 1, 2021