Posts by Brent Ozar

Brent Ozar

2787 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.

Review: SSMS Copilot vs Other AI Tools

Last Updated May 28, 2025

Brent Ozar

SQL Server Management Studio

I use AI tools constantly in my work, so when the new SSMS v21 came out with Copilot support, I was excited to try it. The short story is that the user interface is fine, and it doesn’t feel buggy, but the advice is simply terrible compared to other LLMs due to the prompt Copilot is…

How SQL Server 2025’s Optional Parameter Plan Optimization Works

Last Updated May 22, 2025

Brent Ozar

SQL Server 2025

About three years ago, SQL Server 2022 introduced Parameter-Sensitive Plan Optimization (PSPO). At the time, I explained that it didn’t work particularly well, and went so far as to pronounce PSPO in a rather unflattering way. I wouldn’t suggest that anyone turn it off – it’s fine, just fine – but it isn’t powerful enough,…

How I Configure SQL Server Management Studio v21

Last Updated May 21, 2025

Brent Ozar

SQL Server Management Studio

Several years ago, I wrote a post about how I configure older versions of SQL Server Management Studio, but now that SSMS v21 is out, it’s time to revisit that post. SSMS v21 is built on the Visual Studio shell, so it’s got a lot of cool new tricks. Let’s make sure you’re using ’em.…

New Objects in SQL Server 2025 – And Thousands of New Undocumented Feature Flags!

Last Updated May 20, 2025

Brent Ozar

SQL Server 2025

The first public preview of SQL Server 2025 dropped yesterday, and here’s what’s new under the hood as compared to today’s SQL Server 2022 CU19. Forgive me – this is quite a lengthy post, and it’s mostly a data dump. There are new stored procedures, extended stored procs, views, feature switches, new columns in existing…

I'M MAD AS HELL AND I'M NOT ... actually I'm going to keep taking it because I get paid to take it

Fabric Is Just Plain Unreliable, and Microsoft’s Hiding It.

Last Updated July 21, 2025

Brent Ozar

Microsoft Azure

Update 2025/07/21: Microsoft heard the complaints, and fixed the reliability added a better status page. Baby steps. Last week, Microsoft Fabric went down yet again for hours on multiple continents. Oh, you didn’t hear about it? Let’s talk about why. First, Fabric’s status page is fabricated bullshit. The link https://aka.ms/fabricsupport takes you to a localized…

[Video] Office Hours at the Hoover Dam

Last Updated April 27, 2025

Brent Ozar

Videos

Dam! I took your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento without making any dam or beaver puns. Rather proud of myself for that one. Office Hours at the Hoover DamWatch this video on YouTube Here’s what we covered: 00:00 Start 02:20 The Princess and the Frag: On SQL Server 2019 or later, are reorganising a columnstore index…

Predicting When SQL Server Will Hit the CPU Wall

Last Updated May 8, 2025

Brent Ozar

Wait Stats

Most of the time, we use wait stats to identify SQL Server’s bottleneck and focus on what to tune. However, let’s say you’ve got a really well-tuned SQL Server where: Queries finish in milliseconds (think 5-20 milliseconds, super quick) Everything your queries need is cached in memory There are no blocking issues The workload doesn’t…

SQL ConstantCare Badges

Last Updated May 8, 2025

Brent Ozar

SQL ConstantCare

SQL ConstantCare™, our monitoring app that gives you a simple daily email with actionable tasks to make your servers faster and more reliable, is about to start sending out monthly awards! On the first weekday of each month, we’ll email the winners with their gold, silver, and bronze badges. Well, I say badges – some…

[Video] Office Hours: Speed Round!

Last Updated April 27, 2025

Brent Ozar

Videos

Not all of y’all’s questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento require long, thought-out answers. Let’s do a speed round: Office Hours: Speed Round!Watch this video on YouTube Here’s what we covered: 00:00 Start 00:34 Alain Térieur: Hi Brent. I started the restore of a (big) DB. And it took more than 2h before the resore actually started. What…

You probably don't wanna hire these two.

Don’t Let Your Kids Drop ACID.

Last Updated April 26, 2025

Brent Ozar

Locking, Blocking, and Isolation Levels

We’re heading towards graduation time. In just a few short months, your high school kids are going to be packing up their bags and heading off to college. It’s a time of adventure and discovery, and the first time they’ll be away from your parenting and guiding influences. Take a moment to talk to them…

Who’s Hiring in the Microsoft Data Platform Community? May 2025 Edition

Last Updated April 15, 2025

Brent Ozar

Who's Hiring

Is your company hiring for a database position as of May 2025? 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…

[Video] Office Hours: Hot Dog Fingers Edition

Last Updated April 10, 2025

Brent Ozar

Videos

I strapped on my Apple Vision Pro, updated its OS, and recaptured my persona with the latest updates, and… it’s still pretty weird. Let’s go through your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento and have a laugh at my hot dog fingers. Office Hours: Hot Dog Fingers EditionWatch this video on YouTube I didn’t mention in the…

SQL Server 2022 Finally Fixed a SQL Server 2008 Query Plan Bug!

Last Updated April 26, 2025

Brent Ozar

Execution Plans

For yeeeeeears, when I’ve explained execution plans, part of my explanation has included the instructions, “Read the plan from right to left, top to bottom, looking for the place where the estimates vs actuals are suddenly way off.” Here’s an example: Things seem to be going okay on the query plan until you hit the…

[Video] Office Hours: Hello Kitty Porsche Edition

Last Updated April 5, 2025

Brent Ozar

Videos

On a nice sunny Saturday, I took the 911 around the Las Vegas canyons, and stopped to answer your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento: Office Hours: Hello Kitty Porsche EditionWatch this video on YouTube Here’s what we covered: 00:00 Start 00:56 TheWorstDBA: I have a large table with 50 billion rows. It has a partition implemented…

Building AI Calls into the First Responder Kit

Last Updated April 15, 2025

Brent Ozar

First Responder Kit

No, that isn’t an April 1st joke, heh. I know a lot of vendors are shoving AI down your throat, but I can think of a few ways I actually want to get quick, easy advice from large language models (LLM) when I’m calling the sp_Blitz scripts: sp_BlitzCache will have an @AskAI parameter that sends the…

It’s Time for Fundamentals Week! Register for Tomorrow’s Classes.

Last Updated March 30, 2025

Brent Ozar

Conferences and Classes

This is it! You’ve been watching my free live Spring Training classes over the last several weeks, and they’ve whetted your appetite for serious SQL Server learning. You enjoy my laid-back, humorous approach to sharing what I’ve learned over the years. You love live classes. You’ve tried watching recordings or stepping through demos yourself, but…you…

[Video] Office Hours in the Home Bar

Last Updated April 6, 2025

Brent Ozar

Videos

On a sunny Saturday afternoon, I made myself a highball and went through your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento. Office Hours in the Home BarWatch this video on YouTube Here’s what we covered: 00:00 Start 00:57 jrl: Do you have any advice about communicating effectively in a fully remote workplace where all discussion is centered around…

Your SQL Server Needs Spring Cleaning, Too.

Last Updated April 6, 2025

Brent Ozar

Indexing

First things first: pick up that filthy keyboard, take it over to the trash can, turn it upside down, and give it a good, vigorous shake. Next, go to your biggest SQL Server and run: Transact-SQL EXEC sp_BlitzIndex @GetAllDatabases = 1, @Mode = 2, @SortOrder = 'rows'; 12 EXEC sp_BlitzIndex @GetAllDatabases = 1, @Mode = 2,…

Updated First Responder Kit and Consultant Toolkit for April 2025

Last Updated April 14, 2025

Brent Ozar

First Responder Kit Updates

This quarter’s release contains a few advanced warnings & tools, like table input for sp_BlitzLock, new warnings about paused resumable index operations that will be deleted automatically by SQL Server 2022, and a new option to maintain carriage returns and line feeds in sp_BlitzCache’s output. Wanna watch me use it? Take the free class. To…

The Waitlist is Open Now for My SQLBits Workshop!

Last Updated April 13, 2025

Brent Ozar

SQLBits

I’m excited to return to London for SQLBits again this year! I’ve written about why SQLBits is my favorite conference, and it’s hard to believe it’s been over a decade since I wrote that post. I still feel the same way about Bits – it’s fun, different, and unafraid to run big experiments. This year,…