Videos

I’m back in the home office to take your database questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento. Here’s what we covered in this episode: 00:00 Start 03:15 Mattia Nocerino: I’ve always ignored database t-sql snapshots. What are good use cases, if any? 05:12 All.. Night.. Log..: Any recommendations for what to do when we hit high Tlog VLF count…

I took a break from unpacking my SQL Saturday San Diego bags and re-packing for a Boston wedding long enough to take your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento. Here’s what we covered: 01:55 Deadlockinator: Hi Brent, Why does sp_BlitzWho return NULL in the query_text for some SPID, even when I’m running it as sysadmin? It also…

On an unbelievably calm sea day off the shores of Canada, aboard the Norwegian Jewel, I enjoyed a nice cup of completely alcohol-free coffee (as far as you know) and took your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento. Here’s what we covered: 00:00 Start 01:20 NotCloseEnoughToRetirementToStopLearning: Inherited a server with dozen trace flags on but no documentation…

While in beautiful Haines, Alaska along the Chilkoot River, I stopped to take your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento. Here’s what we covered: 00:00 Start 00:26 James L: When you were an employee, how did you decide whether to move on to another job? I think a similar dilemma exists when you’re trying to decide whether…

I’m on a boat! We took an Alaska cruise with some friends aboard the Norwegian Jewel. En route to Icy Strait Point, Alaska, I took your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento. Here’s what we covered: 00:00 Start 01:40 RollbackIsSingleThread: Hi Brent! If a high-quality blog post involves original ideas, T-SQL, a great demo, and images to…

I took your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento while recovering from a late night of partying. Here’s what we covered: 00:00 Start 01:00 VegasDBA: Loved the Always-On Availability Group Episode! You mentioned how awful the dashboard is for monitoring. Can you recommend any scripts, custom alerts, or dashboards to keep a better eye on things? 03:26…

I went through your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento plus hit live ones from the TikTok viewers. Here’s what we covered: 00:00 Start 00:52 chandwich: If SSMS had a dark mode option that was equally as good as the existing light mode, would you use it? Any idea why it doesn’t exist yet? RE: The on-call…

I went live on TikTok and took your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento: Here’s what we covered: 00:00 Start 00:23 Andrea Hardesty: Do you have any recommendations for reproducing parameter sniffing issues? I have a copy of a production DB. I want @param=222 to use the plan compiled with @param=111 like it did in production. In…

Last week, we had an abrupt intro, and this week, we have an abrupt ending when my camera overheats, hahaha: We went through your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento. Here’s what we covered: 00:00 Start 00:43 cha2rg: We have an OLTP table size of 4TB and rows of 6 billion. Scheduled an old data deletion job…

Today’s Office Hours had a ton of technical difficulties because it was my first live stream on both Twitch and TikTok. The first few minutes were cut off, and you can’t see the questions onscreen. Nonetheless, there are good answers in here, so let’s do it:   Here’s what we covered: 00:00 Start 00:03 LivingTheDream:…

I was supposed to be on a flight to Mexico, but had to cancel at the last minute. While waiting for my favorite bagel shop to open, I went through your professional development questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento. Here’s what we covered: 00:00 Start 03:25 Asking for a friend: As a prod dba, should I know what…

I took your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento, including a few career-oriented ones: Here’s what we covered: 00:00 Start 01:10 Trushit: You mention in your career internals guide that you focused on high value things for which business are willing to pay. How did you control the temptation of trying to learn everything & focus on…

I was busy, so I asked a friend to fill in for me and answer your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento. He did a pretty good job:   Here’s what we covered: 00:00 Start 00:52 Confused: Who uses differential backups, really? I don’t get the point. 02:20 Chris: Are third-party tools a necessity or a luxury…

What a comfy morning to sit down with a breakfast margarita and tackle your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento. Here’s what we covered: 00:00 Start 00:36 DBA_Mufasa: When we restore a DB from a prod source to a different server, does the DB come with the index usage stats from the original source server or do…

While taking a dip in Cabo, I went through your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento. Here’s what we covered: 00:00 Start 01:00 OpportunityKnocking: What are your thoughts on when to implement a NoSQL strategy over traditional RDBMS for large enterprise-wide database platform solutions? I see scalability advantages in using NoSQL but do you see this becoming…

On a pleasantly mild morning, I sat down on the patio and took your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento.   Here’s what we covered: 00:00 Start 00:56 MyTeaGotCold: When going in to a database blind, do you worry at all about its compatibility level? I see a lot of unloved databases that are still on 2008’s…

I went through your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento while in front of the National Gallery for Foreign Art in Sofia.   Here’s what we covered: 00:00 Start 03:12 MyTeaGotCold: If all of my columns are nvarchar, is there a performance benefit to always wrapping strings in N”? My tests have been inconclusive. 03:50 SadButTrue: Hey…

I was honored to speak at the Present to Succeed conference in Sofia, Bulgaria, run by a former SQL Server MCM. Sofia is a beautiful city, and the gorgeous Patriarchal Cathedral of St. Alexander Nevsky (Wikipedia) was close to my hotel, so I dragged my tripod over there for an Office Hours session.   Here’s…