Videos

Whenever I move to a new place and set up a new home studio, I give you a walkthrough so you can get a rough idea of how I work. I just finished setting up my new San Diego home base, and here’s a tour of what it looks like both as an attendee, and…

Good evening, party people! I finally have my new San Diego home base all set up and unpacked, so I took a champagne break to review your top-rated questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento. Here’s what we covered: 00:00 Introductions 00:27 Alex: Hi Brent. For a few hours we got a “Could not continue scan with NOLOCK due…

Just got the keys to the new home base in San Diego, and the furniture isn’t even in yet. I went through your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento before my smoke alarm battery started chirping: Here’s what we covered: 00:00 Introductions 01:10 Yoni – We have 60-100GB DBs on SQL server on windows (VM). Will it…

On a very chilly morning, I went through your highly-upvoted questions from here and talked through ’em: Here’s what we covered: 00:00 Introductions 01:02 Johnny: Good morning, Brent! VARCHAR or NVARCHAR; which one to use in our Western world? One could say that disk space is cheap so it doesn’t matter. But with SQL Server’s…

I stopped at a waterfall in Iceland to answer your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento. Here’s what we covered: 00:00 Introductions 00:28 Accidental DBA: How do I determine if SQL Server instances are licensed? 02:22 Jose: What activities do I need to do if I sell managed SQL Server as a service? 03:23 Mr. Griffith: How…

I drove up the volcano Hekla in central Iceland – also known as the Gateway to Hell – and parked the Defender here: While my travel companions hiked up higher (and took that photo), I set up the tripod and camera, then went through your highly-upvoted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento. Here are the questions I covered:…

The beach at Vestrahorn mountain looks different every time we’ve visited: high tide, low tide, sun, clouds. Always a fun side trip when we’re out in the southeast of Iceland. I took a break to answer the questions you upvoted here. Questions we covered: 00:00 Introductions 00:38 Scott M: When do you recommend sp_BlitzWho vs…

I took a break from playing with glacier leftovers at Diamond Beach to answer the questions you upvoted at https://pollgab.com/room/brento/. 00:00 Introductions 1:21 Null Pointer: When we move to Azure SQL DB, should we worry about having all our data and backups in one place? 03:27 Josh: We’re using indexed views, and we have to…

You posted and upvoted SQL Server questions at https://pollgab.com/room/brento, and I went out for a walk on the Seltjarnarnes peninsula to the lighthouse to answer ’em. Here’s what we covered: 00:00 Introductions 00:58 Gio: Any known gotchas from using Windows Update to apply CUs to SQL 02:17 AlwaysLearningDBA: Hello Brent. A friend of mine wanted…

You posted and upvoted questions at https://pollgab.com/room/brento to pick what you’d like to see covered in a Q&A session: Here’s what we covered: 00:00 Introductions 00:26 Mehdi: Hi Brent! What is the first step when SQL Server is overloaded? But we can still connect to SQL Server by SSMS. 02:36 Allan: Do you think learning SSIS…

I hang out by Hallgrímskirkja, the modern church in Reykjavik, and take your highly-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento. Here’s what we covered: 00:00 Introductions 00:18 __normally_weird (Sean C): Can you dispel the now prevailing myth that you and your wife are the only8 people in Iceland at the moment? 01:33 Andy Leonard: What “bugs” exist in…

Before Fjöruborðið opens for lunch, I answer a few of your questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento including: 00:00 Introductions 00:29 Peter: What is your opinion about the SQL generated by Entity Framework? 02:00 Peter: When would you switch from EF to stored procedures? 02:45 Always Learning DBA: What are free resources to help me transition into an…

I sit on the porch and discuss your highly voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento. Today’s discussion includes: 00:00 Introductions 00:27 DK: What was your Gordian Knot problem? 03:25 George: How exactly does locking work on INSERT INTO…SELECT FROM? 05:48 Michael: Can I tell if hyperthreading is turned on or off? 07:25 Party People: What are the…

You upvoted questions at https://pollgab.com/room/brento, and today I’m at the harbor in Heimaey to cover ’em. Questions we talked through: 00:00 Introductions 01:00 Zach: What happens when I change a VARCHAR(MAX) to VARCHAR(2500)? 04:26 Scott: What tools do you recommend for tracking down locks involved in blocking? 07:23 Pointing out the beluga whale sanctuary 07:58…

You posted and upvoted questions at https://pollgab.com/room/brento, and I ascended – well, drove into – the Eldfell Volcano in the Westman Islands to answer ’em: Questions we covered in the video: 00:00 Introductions 01:55 Do you notice big improvements for physical servers over virtual servers? 05:14 Why aren’t my SQL Servers using all of the…

I sat down at the EVE Online Monument in Reykjavik to answer the highly-voted questions you posted here. Questions covered in the video: 00:00 The EVE Online Monument 00:48 Why is SQL Server using so much memory? 02:30 Will table compression make a 2GB database faster? 03:28 Will you be doing Office Hours long term? 04:39…

In this episode, I’ve got my own question: what’s this animal running around at my feet? Commenters on the YouTube video explained that it’s a mink. They were imported into Iceland in the 1930s for their fur, and they escaped out into the wild. The country’s been trying to reduce their population, and they’ve even…

You’ve got questions, I’ve got answers. Welcome to another edition of Office Hours, where you post your questions here, upvote the ones you’d like to see me talk through, and I do your bidding: Questions we covered this week: 00:00 Introductions 01:30 Are DBAs transitioning to other roles, and why? 04:48 Why is it hard…

Got questions that aren’t a good fit for DBA.StackExchange.com, and you want my opinion? Post them here and upvote the questions you’d like to see me talk through. This weekend, I hopped into my home studio and did a half-hour session because so many good questions had piled up: Here are the questions I answered…

We took a break from roaming around Iceland long enough to check in at our home studio. While we were here, I did a live Office Hours session, taking your questions about Microsoft SQL Server. Questions I answered in the video: 00:00 Introductions 02:35 How can I tell if my SQL Server has too much…