SQL Server

Humor, SQL Server

We asked you to pick theme songs to play when SQL Server has issues, and holy cow, you sent in a ton of submissions. We couldn’t possibly pick just one in each category, so each of us picked our own winners – all of whom get a free training video class of their choice. (Folks who…

Minimal Logging when you can’t change the code

Last Updated March 16, 2016

What a gem! Minimal logging is super cool. If you follow all the rules, there’s a pretty good chance it will work! Unfortunately, it’s not always up to you. All sorts of ISVs put out all sorts of bad ideas in form of code. Sort of like in Ghostbusters, when Gozer tells the crew to…

Generating test data without complicated T-SQL

Last Updated February 14, 2017

Load Testing, SQL Server

Sometimes you need garbage Not because DBAs are the IT equivalent of Oscar the Grouch, but maybe you want to post a question on a forum, and you don’t want to use your own data. At least, you probably shouldn’t just post your own data without masking it. But masking data is annoying, and by…

Make Extended Events Great… Finally

Last Updated March 22, 2016

SQL Server 2016 is adding some really awesome stuff Not the least of which is a ton of super cool information in execution plans, and an Extended Events session to expose the same information for all queries. The details are detailed in detail over on this blog post from MS. For those of you with…

Announcing sp_BlitzIndex® v3.0, sp_Blitz® v48, More

Last Updated February 13, 2017

First Responder Kit, SQL Server

Lots of fun stuff out this week: sp_BlitzIndex® v3.0 adds prioritized, streamlined results. We see so many index design disasters, and we know you have a limited amount of time. Doug Lane put a ton of work into focusing the output on the most important issues, things that are easy-to-fix and will have an immediate performance improvement, and…

2016 Company Retreat Photos

Last Updated March 16, 2016

This year, we gathered in Napa, California for our annual company retreat. Here’s some of our favorite memories: Here’s to another fun year of working together and making a difference in the SQL Server community.

The Joy of Joining on NULLs

Last Updated March 16, 2016

With all the trouble NULLs cause… You’d think people would be more inclined to avoid them. Slap a NOT NULL constraint and a default value on your column and call it a day. I’m perfectly fine with bizarro world canary values. If it’s an integer column, some really high (low?) negative number. If it’s date-based,…

How to Split Strings with SQL Server 2016 & Newer

Last Updated November 18, 2017

Before SQL Server 2016, you might have used a function like Jeff Moden’s DelimitedSplit8k function or Adam Machanic’s CLR version. (Aaron Bertrand has a huge post comparing performance of different string splitting methods, too.) But there’s a new, faster game in town! SQL Server 2016 introduces a brand new STRING_SPLIT function: Transact-SQL SELECT * FROM STRING_SPLIT('This is a space-delimited…

Why most of you should leave Auto-Update Statistics on

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Index Maintenance, SQL Server, Statistics

Oh God, he’s talking about statistics again Yeah, but this should be less annoying than the other times. And much shorter. You see, I hear grousing. Updating statistics was bringin’ us down, man. Harshing our mellow. The statistics would just update, man, and it would take like… Forever, man. Man. But no one would actually…

Unique Indexes and Row Modifications: Weird

Last Updated March 12, 2018

Indexing, SQL Server

Confession time This started off with me reading a blurb in the release notes about SQL Server 2016 CTP 3.3. The blurb in question is about statistics. They’re so cool! Do they get fragmented? NO! Stop trying to defragment them, you little monkey. Autostats improvements in CTP 3.3 Previously, statistics were automatically recalculated when the…

Learning How To Learn: Setting Priorities

Last Updated April 9, 2017

Learning is hard I hate command lines. It’s rare that I get things right the first, or even tenth time. I have a horrible memory. Seriously. Most of the time I wouldn’t know what day of the week it is if it weren’t printed on my vitamin case. When it comes to SQL, especially commands…

Microsoft SQL Server is Coming to Linux.

Last Updated February 9, 2017

Licensing, SQL Server

Two things: SQL Server is coming to Linux, and no, this isn’t April 1st, although the meeting minutes kinda read that way. Let’s zoom back for a second: if you want to expand an existing business, you have two good options: Sell a new product to your existing customers Sell your existing product to new customers For years,…

SQL Server 2016 Installation Screenshot Tour

Last Updated March 7, 2016

SQL Server 2016 Release Candidate 0 is out. Here’s what the installation process looks like: Installation Center – not much new here until you click on the Installation tab Note that on the Installation tab, though, there’s a new line for “Install SQL Server Management Tools.” Management Tools got promoted (or is it voted off…

Database-Scoped Configurations Replace Trace Flags.

Last Updated September 13, 2020

Trace flags are special switches that, when you flip them, enable different behaviors in your SQL Server. Back in the SQL Server 2000-2005 days, these were super-rare undocumented tricks that were handed out by Microsoft support to fix rare cases. Over time, some trace flags have become so commonplace that they worked their way into…

Changes to auto update stats thresholds in SQL Server 2016

Last Updated February 25, 2016

TL;DR As of CTP 3.3, it’s the same behavior as Trace Flag 2371, in 2008 R2 SP1 and onward. That basically means that the bigger your table is, the fewer rows need to be modified before an automatic statistics update occurs. Slightly longer… The change was announced over here. At first I thought, woah, cool,…

My Favorite System Column: LOG_REUSE_WAIT_DESC

Last Updated February 9, 2017

Backup and Recovery, SQL Server

Hidden away in master.sys.databases is one of the coolest diagnostic tools you might ever need: Transact-SQL SELECT name, log_reuse_wait_desc FROM sys.databases; 1 SELECT name, log_reuse_wait_desc FROM sys.databases; This spiffy little snippet will tell you why each database’s log file isn’t clearing out. Possible reasons include: Log backup needs to be run (or if you could…

Moving Databases with ALTER DATABASE

Last Updated February 18, 2016

True story A long time ago, I had to actually do stuff to databases. One thing I had to do was move data files around. Maybe some knucklehead had put system databases on the C: drive, or a LUN was filling up, or we got a new LUN. You know, whatever. Natural curiosity oft leads…

Out of Office: Time For the 2016 Brent Ozar Unlimited Retreat

Last Updated March 4, 2016

Last year’s company retreat on the Oregon coast Thank you for your web visit. Your eyeballs are very important to us. However, we’re out of the office and will be back on Monday, March 7, 2016. During this period we will have limited access to our email. We’ll still have full access to Twitter, Facebook, and…

How often should I run DBCC CHECKDB?

Last Updated February 13, 2017