Posts by Brent Ozar

Brent Ozar

2449 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.

Free Azure Networking Training This Month!

Last Updated July 12, 2023

Brent Ozar

Microsoft Azure

Raise your hand if you’ve ever blamed the network. You’re responsible for the health, security, and uptime of your company’s data services in Azure. You’ve provisioned a few services, but every now and then, you run into problems making your services reachable and reliable from different users and app servers. You want to understand: Your…

FOR XML PATH Changed The Way I Think About T-SQL #TSQL2sday

Last Updated July 4, 2023

Brent Ozar

T-SQL

The first time I saw FOR XML PATH being used to generate a comma-delimited list, I think I stared at it, shook my head to clear the cobwebs, stared at it some more, and then closed the code editor thinking it was complete witchcraft. And that same thing probably happened the next several times, too.…

[Video] Office Hours: DBA & Developer Relationships

Last Updated June 26, 2023

Brent Ozar

Videos

Y’all posted & upvoted questions at https://pollgab.com/room/brento, and we finished up the session talking about the relationships between developers and database administrators. Here’s what we covered: 00:00 Start 02:35 Nortzi: Hi Brent. Is there a way to optimize sorting a result using a column from a different table? Using POC index pattern (partition,order,covering) works great…

[Video] Office Hours: Lots of Good SQL Server Questions

Last Updated June 26, 2023

Brent Ozar

Videos

At https://pollgab.com/room/brento, post the questions you’d like to get my opinion on, and I’ll take a break every now and then at the office and go through ’em. Here’s what we covered in this episode: 00:00 Start 01:08 #ARRRRRGH: Hi Brent. Have you seen anybody put good visualisations on top of sp_Blitz? Im trying to…

[Video] How to Use ChatGPT to Write WordPress Blog Posts

Last Updated June 26, 2023

Brent Ozar

Blogging, Videos

Today’s live stream was a little different: I demonstrated using the Aiomatic WordPress plugin, ChatGPT, and Azure Open AI to write blog posts. I showed the kinds of content it writes, the kinds of blog post content it doesn’t include, and taught you how to identify meaningless word salad blog posts written by people who…

[Video] Office Hours: As They Pour My Patio Concrete Edition

Last Updated June 26, 2023

Brent Ozar

Videos

I can finally see the finish line in my backyard renovation, now that the concrete’s going in. I took a break from watching the construction folks to go through your highly upvoted questions at https://pollgab.com/room/brento: Here’s what we covered: 00:00 Start 02:03 Fabricator: Hi Brent, what is your take on the recent lunch of Microsoft…

How to Make Database Changes Without Breaking Everything

Last Updated June 26, 2023

Brent Ozar

Development

You’ve got an existing application with a database back end. You’re thinking about changing the database, and you don’t wanna break stuff. The most important thing to understand is difference between constructive and destructive changes, also known as additive and destructive changes, or non-breaking and breaking changes. Constructive change examples: adding a new table or…

It’s Friday. I’m Not Answering These 14 Office Hours Questions.

Last Updated June 21, 2023

Brent Ozar

Production Database Administration

Sometimes, I don’t care if questions get a lot of upvotes at https://pollgab.com/room/brento – I just don’t wanna answer ’em. They’re not necessarily bad questions, but I’m just not interested in them, or I’ve answered them repeatedly, or I don’t have a good answer. Maybe y’all do, though, so I’ve numbered these. If you want…

[Video] Office Hours: Github Copilot in Azure Data Studio

Last Updated June 20, 2023

Brent Ozar

Videos

I start today’s Office Hours by playing with the very underwhelming Github Copilot in ADS, then take your questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento. Here’s what we covered: 00:00 Start 04:06 Github Copilot in Azure Data Studio 24:36 Byron: Seeing plan cache queries for a long since retired table. What is best way to track down the app…

Updated First Responder Kit and Consultant Toolkit for June 2023

Last Updated June 20, 2023

Brent Ozar

First Responder Kit Updates

This one’s a pretty quiet release: just bug fixes in sp_Blitz, sp_BlitzLock, and sp_DatabaseRestore. Wanna watch me use it? Take the class. To get the new version: Download the updated FirstResponderKit.zip Azure Data Studio users with the First Responder Kit extension: ctrl/command+shift+p, First Responder Kit: Import. PowerShell users: run Install-DbaFirstResponderKit from dbatools Get The Consultant…

The Best Career Advice I Ever Got (#TSQL2sday)

Last Updated June 20, 2023

Brent Ozar

Professional Development

Steve Jobs. Photo by Matthew Yohe. I have been absurdly lucky to be around so many amazing and inspirational managers. Almost everything I know was taught to me by someone else. Over my life, I’ve learned so much about careers, marketing, business, communications, teaching, databases, you name it. For this month’s T-SQL Tuesday, Gethyn Ellis…

Why Are Y’all Changing the Compat Levels on Master?

Last Updated June 16, 2023

Brent Ozar

SQL ConstantCare

One of the things I love about SQL ConstantCare® (which happens to be free this month, by the way) is that I can keep in touch with what y’all are actually doing on your production servers. Today’s lesson was a complete shocker to me: some of y’all are changing the compatibility level on the master…

[Video] Office Hours: Almost Back in San Francisco

Last Updated June 13, 2023

Brent Ozar

Videos

It’s back to lighter fog-friendly clothes as the ship pulls into San Francisco and I answer your questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento. Here’s what we discussed: 00:00 Start 01:16 Pozzolan: Hey Brent, My companies budget for SQL licensing is small. In such situations, does it make sense to switch or start all new development on something like…

The SQL Server Advice You Don’t Wanna Hear

Last Updated May 25, 2023

Brent Ozar

SQL ConstantCare

One of the big principles of our SQL ConstantCare® monitoring product – which happens to be free this month – is that we only wanna tell you things you’re actually gonna take action on. Anytime we email you advice, there a few “Mute” links that you can click on to never hear this advice. You…

Poll Results: Are You Going Back to In-Person Events?

Last Updated June 11, 2023

Brent Ozar

Conferences and Classes

Last week, I asked if y’all had been to in-person regional events before, and whether you were going back. I wanted to know because Data Saturdays and SQL Saturdays are starting to happen again, but … attendance seems way down from pre-COVID numbers. I wondered, are people just not going to return to conferences for…

[Video] Office Hours at Sea: Leaving Juneau

Last Updated May 25, 2023

Brent Ozar

Videos

I stopped piloting the ship long enough to answer your top-voted database questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento. Here’s what we covered: 00:00 Start 00:42 Dirty_Pages: You mentioned recently how much you swear, what is your favorite swear word(s) and why? Any favorite insults? 02:38 SQLCircus.Clown: What is your go to/default SQL datatype for storing a run of…

[Video] Office Hours in Glacier Bay, Alaska

Last Updated May 25, 2023

Brent Ozar

Videos

Thankfully, we didn’t hit any icebergs or glacier droppings, so I put my comfiest coat on to answer your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento. Here’s what we discussed: 00:00 Start 01:29 gb DBA: Hi Brent, I have over 200 threads with BROKER_RECEIVE_WAITFOR type when I execute sp_whoisactive and some of trx have high numbers on reads…

AWS Aurora Cut Our Database Costs for SQL ConstantCare® – Again.

Last Updated May 25, 2023

Brent Ozar

Amazon Web Services (AWS), SQL ConstantCare

In May, Amazon brought out a new Aurora I/O Optimized Serverless instance type. By switching to it, we cut our database costs by 43% overnight, saving us about $1,200 per month. No strings attached. Just lower prices. So what’s the magic? Well, customers of our SQL ConstantCare® service send us diagnostic data every day for…

Poll: Are You Going Back to In-Person Events?

Last Updated June 2, 2023

Brent Ozar

Conferences and Classes

Two short yes/no questions about regional & national conferences: I've been to an in-person event like SQL Saturday, PASS, SQL Bits before:(Required) Yes No Events likeI intend to go to an in-person event again in the next 12 months:(Required) Yes No Δ (If you can’t see the yes/no questions or the results, click here to…

[Video] Office Hours at Sea: SQL Server Q&A

Last Updated May 24, 2023

Brent Ozar

Videos

En route from San Francisco to Juneau aboard the Ruby Princess, I stopped to hit a few of your questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento. Here’s what we covered: 00:00 Start 00:46 DBACAT: Hi Brent, what statistics impact occurs when a transaction is rolled back? The query’s exec plan didn’t change but duration and CPU jumped 10X. Stats…