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SQL Server

Meet my coauthors on Pro SQL Server Internals and Troubleshooting

Last Updated March 10, 2021

Meet my partners in crime, the people who are going to coauthor the book on SQL Server internals: Christian Bolton – he’s the Director and Database Architect at COEO and SQL Server MVP. He’s ChristianBolton on Twitter. Justin Langford – another SQL guru at COEO, a Principal Consultant, formerly a Microsoft Premier Field Engineer. Christian…

It was a dark and stormy night…

Last Updated March 10, 2021

and I was hunched over my trusty, battered Macbook Pro, sipping whiskey by the backlit keys when the email came in. I got worried as soon I saw the sender, because Big Jimmy May is what they call a “Performance Consultant”. Before I even opened the email, I called my bookie to make sure my…

GTD for my coworkers

Last Updated July 7, 2019

Dear Coworker, Hi. I work differently than other people you may have worked with. I wanna take a minute to bring you up to speed on how I do it, and what this might mean for you. I use the Getting Things Done methodology from David Allen, and here’s how I work. When You Email…

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SQLIO Tutorial: How to Test Disk Performance

Last Updated February 13, 2017

SQL Server, Storage

Storage is a black box, right? The SAN admins ask how much storage space you need, you tell them, and then they give it to you. They don’t tell you how fast (or slow) it is, they don’t know whether it meets your needs, and they probably don’t know where the bottlenecks are. It’s time…

Steel Cage Blogmatch: How to Configure a SAN

Last Updated February 13, 2017

SQL Server, Storage

Jason Massie and Brent Ozar work with SQL Server for a living and write blogs for fun, but that’s where the similarities end. Jason’s a fan of shared storage SANs: putting SQL Server data and logs on the same set of physical hard drives. Brent’s a cheerleader for dedicated configurations where the arrays are separated…

SQL Server 2008’s new Central Management Server

Last Updated March 4, 2018

Got more than one DBA? Want to make your life easier? You might want to configure a Central Management Server. This is useful for fast-changing shops where there’s a lot of servers added and removed. At my last company, we had a hard enough time telling everybody when we’d finished adding a new server, or…

SQL Server on a SAN: Dedicated or Shared Drives?

Last Updated January 17, 2019

SQL Server, Storage

A reader wrote in and asked: We’re running SQL Server with blades and a NetApp SAN. We have a few hundred databases from 100mb to 200gb. All data, logs, tempdb, etc. are located in the same 30-disk pool. Apparently this was setup using NetApp’s guidelines. NetApp recommendations are to put everything in one aggregate, or…

Recommended Books for SQL Server DBAs and Developers

Last Updated February 14, 2017

Book Reviews, SQL Server

Here’s my favorite SQL Server books for 2016-2014: T-SQL Fundamentals – (updated for SQL 2016) – don’t be fooled by this “fundamentals” title, because everybody who writes T-SQL queries needs this book. It’s the manual we should have been given when we started, and everyone’s going to learn something about concurrency, performance, and updates here. T-SQL Querying…

Transparent Data Encryption in SQL Server 2008

Last Updated March 10, 2021

I played around with TDE a couple of weeks ago, and I was surprised by how difficult it is to implement. I’d expected to be able to check a box, put in a password, and click OK, but it’s nowhere near that easy. Restoring encrypted databases from one server to another can also give DBAs…

SQL Server Partitioning: Not the Best Practices for Everything

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Partitioning, SQL Server

When SQL 2005 was in beta, I clapped my hands and jumped for joy the first time I played with partitioning. I’ve done a lot of data warehouse work, and partitioning lets the DBA break down massive tables into smaller, easy-to-manage chunks. We can put heavily accessed parts of the table onto fast storage, and…

SQL Server 2005 Setup Checklist Part 2: After The Install

Last Updated June 27, 2017

I’ve covered what needs to happen before you install SQL Server – now, let’s talk about what to do immediately after the setup finishes. Install not just the service packs, but also the cumulative updates. Starting with SQL Server 2005’s Service Pack 2, Microsoft releases hotfixes in cumulative packs. These updates do more than just…

SQL Server 2005/2008/2012/2014 Setup Checklist

Last Updated May 16, 2018

Brent Ozar Unlimited Team

Ever wonder if you’re missing a step when you set up your SQL Server? Get a checklist to install and configure your SQL Server the right way! We’ve built an easy-to-follow SQL Server Setup Guide for systems administrators, DBAs, and developers that helps you prevent the most common issues we see out in the field. The guide…

What’s the Largest Database You’ve Worked With?

Last Updated January 26, 2018

Professional Development, SQL Server

When hiring a production DBA, I start by asking them, “In terms of file size, what’s the largest database you’ve worked with?” In a perfect world, we’d only hire very experienced candidates, people who’ve worked with larger databases than we’re dealing with. In reality, though, we can’t always afford those candidates – if they’re even…

SQL Server Backup Best Practices

Last Updated September 18, 2017

Backup and Recovery, SQL Server

I’ve been backing up SQL Servers for almost a decade now, and it’s time to share the lessons I’ve learned. All of this is my own opinion – your mileage may vary – but I’ll try to explain the reasoning behind the choices I make. I won’t address log shipping or snapshots this time around.…

SQL Server Perfmon (Performance Monitor) Best Practices

Last Updated May 5, 2021

Monitoring, SQL Server

Database administrators need to know each SQL Server’s weakest link so we know where to focus their hardware budgets and time. On any given server, we need to know what the slowest component is, and where it’ll pay off to invest hours and dollars. This is performance tuning, and the first place to start is…

Goodbye MovableType, hello WordPress

Last Updated March 8, 2021

The more sober among you will notice a small change in the look & feel of this here site. I’ve been toying around with WordPress on some of my other sites for a while, and it’s time I took the plunge and changed over BrentOzar.com. For the next couple of weeks, this site will be…

Macbook in the driver’s seat

Last Updated February 11, 2017

Macbook in the driver’s seat, originally uploaded by BrentOzar. My coworkers were a little surprised yesterday when I alreay had my Macbook Pro as my primary machine, and my Dell had already been relegated to riding shotgun. The only reason I even still have it on my desk is because I have to get our…

I’m getting a Macbook Pro!

Last Updated April 20, 2019

YES! YES! YES! Or as they say in the World Cup, GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL! My boss knows about my lust after the grooviness known as the Apple Macbook Pro, and he just scored me the coolest project. I get to be the pilot guy for supporting Macs internally. I’m way psyched. Now for the wild part –…

End ofa long, hard day

Last Updated February 11, 2017

End ofa long, hard day, originally uploaded by BrentOzar. I spent the second half of the day building and installing a couple of pizza boxes from IBM. We’re cleaning up our network test lab, mounting flat panels on the walls for easier builds, and just generally making it a nicer place to spend time.

SQL Server training for developers: primary keys & indexes

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Indexing, SQL Server

I had to do some developer training last week and I wrote up a paper on the basics of primary keys and indexes. Sure, there’s tons of similar stuff around the net, but this is MINE, baby. Our Table: Phone Numbers For our evil training purposes, let’s say we work for the phone company, and…