Posts by Brent Ozar

Brent Ozar

2789 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.

New Year’s Resolution: Lose Weight in Your Database

Last Updated January 5, 2022

Brent Ozar

Indexing

Made a New Year’s resolution to lose weight this year? Forget taking it off your waistline – take it off your database instead with: sp_BlitzIndex @GetAllDatabases = 1, @Mode = 2, @SortOrder = ‘size’ Or: sp_BlitzIndex @GetAllDatabases = 1, @Mode = 2, @SortOrder = ‘rows’ This produces an inventory of all the indexes sorted by…

Who’s Hiring in the Database Community? January 2022 Edition

Last Updated March 12, 2022

Brent Ozar

Who's Hiring

Last year, I started this series of “who’s hiring” blog posts because The Great Resignation was clearly a real thing. The pandemic is causing so many folks to rethink what they do for a living, where they do it, who they do it for, and in light of yesterday’s salary survey results, how much money…

Here Are The Results of the 2022 Data Professional Salary Survey.

Last Updated January 3, 2022

Brent Ozar

Salary

Every year, I run a salary survey for folks in the database industry. This year, I was especially curious to see the results to find out whether salaries went up. Anecdotally, I’ve seen a lot of people jumping ship to new companies due to the Great Resignation – but what does the data actually show?…

The SQL Server Posts You Read the Most in 2021

Last Updated December 20, 2021

Brent Ozar

SQL Server

I think of my blog posts in a few different categories: Posts that will only be read at the moment they’re published (like upcoming webcasts, humorous stuff, and career advice) Posts that will show up in search history over time and continue to be evergreen (like how a feature works) Posts that provoke discussion and…

[Video] Office Hours: SQL Server at Sunset

Last Updated January 31, 2022

Brent Ozar

Videos

Let’s kick back with a tasty beverage and go through your highest-upvoted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento on the beach: Office Hours: SQL Server at Sunset in CaboWatch this video on YouTube Here’s what we covered: 00:00 Introductions 00:49 Alexander Speshilov: How to determine amount of memory (RAM) used by query store? 02:23 Aslan: Merhaba Brent, in…

Check Your SQL Server Backup Performance & Safety with sp_BlitzBackups

Last Updated December 18, 2021

Brent Ozar

Backup and Recovery, First Responder Kit

Out of all of the scripts in our free First Responder Kit, sp_BlitzBackups is probably the one you’ve used the least. Let’s talk about what comes out of it, and why you should use it more often. First, let’s define two terms: Recovery Point Objective (RPO) – measured in time, it’s how much data you…

[Video] Office Hours: SQL Server Q&A in Cabo at Sunrise

Last Updated December 15, 2021

Brent Ozar

Videos

Let’s watch the sun rise at Land’s End and cover your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento/. Office Hours: SQL Server Q&A at Dawn in CaboWatch this video on YouTube Here’s what we covered: 00:00 Introductions 01:04 Jr Wannabe DBA: Hi Brent, a colleague wants to upgrade from Standard to Enterprise purely for performance gains on several…

[Video] Office Hours: First Post From Cabo

Last Updated December 13, 2021

Brent Ozar

Videos

Join me on my balcony in Cabo as I review your top-rated questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento. Office Hours: First Post From Cabo San LucasWatch this video on YouTube Here’s what we covered: 00:00 Introductions 00:48 md: Hi Brent, as SQL Server works with 8K pages why is the recommended NTFS Unit Allocation Size for SQL volumes…

Don’t Use SQL Server to Send Emails.

Last Updated December 12, 2021

Brent Ozar

Production Database Administration

I would like to unsubscribe from this idea. I’m not talking about Agent alerts when jobs fail. That’s fine when you can’t get the business to spring for a monitoring system. I’m talking about using SQL Server to send emails to confirm a customer’s order, alert that a product is low on stock, or other…

[Video] Office Hours: SQL Server 2008 R2 Edition, I Guess

Last Updated December 7, 2021

Brent Ozar

Videos

I went through your highest-voted questions from Pollgab and talked through ’em, and strangely, there was a bit of a 2008R2 theme! Office Hours, SQL Server 2008R2 Edition, I GuessWatch this video on YouTube Here’s what we covered: 00:00 Introductions 02:00 Pete Donnelly: Hi Brent, I have a 7 TB DB and the largest table…

How Do You Test IOPs, Latency, and Throughput?

Last Updated December 7, 2021

Brent Ozar

Storage

You’ve heard these terms thrown around about storage, and you’re not sure what they mean, and how they relate to each other. Let’s make it simpler by using an analogy. Say you want to measure a shipping company. You’re trying to decide whether to use DHL, FedEx, UPS, or your local postal service. You could…

Going to SQLBits? Join me for my Mastering Parameter Sniffing workshop.

Last Updated December 7, 2021

Brent Ozar

SQLBits

You’re a database developer or DBA with at least 3 years experience performance tuning queries and indexes. You already know you have parameter sniffing issues, and now you need to figure out how to fix it. In this one-day class, you’ll learn how to reduce the blast radius with index changes, query tuning, and database-level…

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

Last Updated March 12, 2022

Brent Ozar

Who's Hiring

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

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

Last Updated December 2, 2021

Brent Ozar

Salary

We’re data people, you and I. We make better decisions when we work off data instead of feelings. It’s time for our annual salary survey to find out what data professionals make. You fill out the data, we open source the whole thing, and you can analyze the data to spot trends and do a…

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

Last Updated November 27, 2021

Brent Ozar

Videos

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! Office Hours, Black Friday Edition: Ask Me Anything About SQL ServerWatch this video on YouTube…

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

Last Updated November 18, 2021

Brent Ozar

Videos

Not all of your questions need detailed answers. In this speed round, I race through 18 answers in 11 minutes: Office Hours Speed Round!Watch this video on YouTube 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…

[Video] Office Hours on the Balcony Part 2

Last Updated November 18, 2021

Brent Ozar

Videos

Picking up right where we left off yesterday, we continue down through the not-so-highly-upvoted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento. Office Hours on the Balcony Part 2: Ask Me Anything About SQL ServerWatch this video on YouTube 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…

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

Last Updated November 18, 2021

Brent Ozar

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

Brent Ozar

Company News

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

Brent Ozar

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…