Posts by Brent Ozar

Y’all post questions at https://pollgab.com/room/brento and upvote the ones you’d like to see me discuss, and then I artfully dodge giving you answers. At least, that’s how it feels sometimes, hahaha: Office Hours: Ham Pillow EditionWatch this video on YouTube Here’s what we discussed in today’s episode: 00:00 Start 00:20 Piotr: Do many of your…

Should You Use SQL Server 2022’s GREATEST and LEAST?

Last Updated December 15, 2022

SQL Server

If you’ve been following along with this week’s posts on DATETRUNC and STRING_SPLIT, you’re probably going to think the answer is no, but bear with me. It’s Christmas week, right? The news can’t all be bad. GREATEST and LEAST are kinda like MAX and MIN, but instead of taking multiple rows as input, they take multiple columns.…

Should You Use SQL Server 2022’s STRING_SPLIT?

Last Updated December 16, 2022

T-SQL

SQL Server 2022 improved the STRING_SPLIT function so that it can now return lists that are guaranteed to be in order. However, that’s the only thing they improved – there’s still a critical performance problem with it. Let’s take the Stack Overflow database, Users table, put in an index on Location, and then test a…

Should You Use SQL Server 2022’s DATETRUNC?

Last Updated December 16, 2022

T-SQL

SQL Server 2022 introduced a new T-SQL element, DATETRUNC, that truncates parts of dates. For example: SELECT DATETRUNC(year, '2017-06-01'); 1 SELECT DATETRUNC(year, '2017-06-01'); Truncates everything in that date other than the year, so it returns just 2017-01-01 00:00: You might ask, “Well, why not just use YEAR()?” That’s a good question – there are times…

[Video] Office Hours: Great Questions, Part 2

Last Updated December 12, 2022

Every time I think, “There can’t be any more SQL Server questions left,” y’all post more great ones at https://pollgab.com/room/brento! Office Hours: More Great QuestionsWatch this video on YouTube Here’s what we covered: 00:21 MattC: Hi Brent. Have you check out ChatGPT’s ability to write SQL code. VERY impressive and in some cases faster than…

Updated First Responder Kit and Consultant Toolkit for December 2022

Last Updated December 13, 2022

First Responder Kit Updates

Santa’s elves took a break from building toys and shipped a new version of the First Responder Kit. There are some great improvements in here, like a makeover for sp_BlitzLock and much better PSPO compatibility for sp_BlitzCache. Wanna watch me use it? Take the class. To get the new version: Download the updated FirstResponderKit.zip Azure…

[Video] Office Hours: Great Questions, Part 1

Last Updated December 12, 2022

Wow, y’all have been posting some great questions at https://pollgab.com/room/brento lately! Office Hours: Great Questions EditionWatch this video on YouTube Here’s what we covered today: 00:59 Gustav: Hi Brent We recently migrated to SQL MI General Purpose, and I noticed that the default blob storage per .mdf /.ndf file is 128Gb container with 500 IOPS!…

Who’s Hiring in the Microsoft Data Platform Community? December 2022 Edition

Last Updated April 1, 2023

Who's Hiring

Is your company hiring for a database position as of December 2022? 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…

Slow “Having” Query? Try Pre-Filtering.

Last Updated November 21, 2022

T-SQL

I was helping a client with a query, and I’m going to rework the example to use the Stack Overflow database for easier storytelling. Say we need to: Find all the locations where users have logged in since a certain date, then Return the total count of people who live in those locations One way…

[Video] Office Hours: Speed Round Edition

Last Updated November 25, 2022

I took a break from my Black Friday sale customer support emails to check in on the questions you posted at https://pollgab.com/room/brento and answer the highest-voted ones: Office Hours: Speed RoundWatch this video on YouTube 00:00 Start 00:15 Meshulam: What are the top use cases for running SQL Server in a container? Do many of…

[Video] Office Hours: Black Friday Edition

Last Updated November 25, 2022

My Black Friday sale is in its last days, so most of my time at the moment is spent keeping an eye on the site and answering customer questions. I’m happy to say it’s our best year so far, too! Y’all really like the new access-for-life options. I took a break from the online frenzy to…

Contest: Guess the SQL Server 2025 Release Date

Last Updated November 18, 2025

SQL Server 2025

316

When will Microsoft officially release SQL Server 2024 (or 2025, or whatever it’ll be) for download? The dust is just barely starting to settle on the 2022 box, so it’s time to guess the next one. Leave one – and only one – comment here in YYYY/MM/DD format with your release date guess. If you…

Are You Underpaid? Let’s Find Out: The 7th Annual Data Professional Salary Survey is Open.

Last Updated January 2, 2023

Salary

Whew. This is a crazy time, isn’t it? The aftermath of the pandemic is kicking in, and there are layoffs happening in Silicon Valley companies, but… the data profession is on fire. I don’t know anyone who’s been out of work for too long because companies are so desperate to get data help. So it’s time…

Looking Back at the 2022 #PASSDataCommunitySummit in Seattle

Last Updated November 21, 2022

I’m back home in Vegas, back down to Inbox Zero, and I’ve had some time to think about last week’s conference in Seattle. I liveblogged the keynotes, but I wanted to talk about the conference overall. This was Redgate’s first time running an in-person Summit after the professional organization folded in December 2020. Redgate bought…

#PASSdataCommunitySummit Keynote Day 3 Live Blog

Last Updated November 18, 2022

SQL Server

Today at the PASS Data Community Summit in Seattle, Kimberly Tripp is doing the first-ever in-person community keynote. Here’s the abstract: Over the 30+ years I’ve been working with SQL Server, I’ve seen an incredible amount of innovation and change. How do we keep up with so many changes and how do we know how…

#PASSdataCommunitySummit Keynote Day 2 Live Blog

Last Updated November 17, 2022

I’m in Seattle for the PASS Data Community Summit, and the day 2 keynote is about to start. This year, now that Redgate owns the Summit event, they’re doing the day 2 keynote. Gotta pay the bills, I suppose! Redgate’s CEO, Jakub Lamik, is leading a team of speakers for the keynote, and here’s the…

SQL Server 2022 Paid Editions Require a Licensing Key.

Last Updated November 17, 2022

SQL Server 2022

For the final release of SQL Server 2022, Microsoft popped a surprise that wasn’t in the release candidates: Your choices are: Install a free edition: Evaluation (which times out after 180 days), Developer (which isn’t allowed to be used for production purposes), or Express (which is limited to small databases & hardware resources) Use pay-as-you-go-billing,…

Join #TeamHugo and Help Fight Leukemia.

Last Updated November 16, 2022

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while or subscribed to my email newsletters, you’ve learned something from Hugo Kornelis. Hugo is the wildly productive and selfless guy behind the Execution Plan Reference, SQLServerFast.com, tons of SQLBits sessions, videos on YouTube, and he’s @Hugo_Kornelis. He’s unbelievably upbeat and positive. He loves what he does, and…

SQL Server 2022 Release Date: November 16, 2022

Last Updated November 16, 2022

SQL Server 2022

Microsoft released SQL Server 2022 today, November 16, 2022. The footnotes indicate: SQL Server 2022 free editions (Developer edition, Express edition) are available to download starting today. SQL Server 2022 paid editions (Enterprise edition, Standard edition) will be available in Volume Licensing (Enterprise Agreement, Enterprise Agreement Subscriptions) customers starting today, which represents the majority of…

#PASSdataCommunitySummit Keynote Day 1 Live Blog: SQL Server 2022 is Out Now.

Last Updated November 16, 2022