First Responder Kit

Home
First Responder Kit

My free First Responder Kit is packed with scripts, worksheets, and checklists like:

sp_Blitz, sp_BlitzIndex, sp_BlitzCache – free health check scripts
SQL Server Setup Checklist – with the common questions I get about configs
High Availability and Disaster Recovery Planning Worksheet – communicating your RPO and RTO clearly
The Data Professional Annual Salary Survey responses

It’s totally free because I’ve been there too. I know how hard it is to keep SQL Server fast and reliable, and I want to make your job easier. Later, if you need consulting or training for tough pains that have you stumped, I hope you’ll stop by.

Email*
Things I want*
- First Responder Kit (Scripts and Guides)
- Subscribe to email updates (3-4 per week)
- 6-Month DBA Training Plan
Marketing permissions*
I consent to receive email marketing from Brent Ozar Unlimited.
Our emails contain marketing stuff, so we need to give you some fine quality fine print: Brent Ozar Unlimited® will use the information you provide on this form to email you with updates and marketing. You can change your mind at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link in the footer of any email you receive from us, or by contacting us at Help@BrentOzar.com. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By checking the box to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing, and that we may process your information in accordance with these terms.
Name
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Instructions

Also known as the fine manual that you probably won’t read at first. You’ll regret that later. It’s okay. I’m the same way.

Health Check: sp_Blitz

Is my SQL Server healthy, or sick?

Speed Check: sp_BlitzFirst

Why is my SQL Server slow right now?

Index Check: sp_BlitzIndex

Are my indexes designed for speed?

Query Check: sp_BlitzCache

Which queries have been using the most resources?

Who’s Doing What: sp_BlitzWho

Who’s running what queries right now?

Query Trending: sp_BlitzQueryStore

How has my query plan changed over time?

Recent First Responder Kit Changes

Where Do Missing Index Requests Come From?

July 27, 2016

Erik Darling

Be honest, here You don’t care about most indexing problems. Duplicates, Borderline Duplicates, Unused, Wide, Non-aligned Partitions… All you’re here for are the Missing Indexes. Wham, bam, your query finishes in less than a second, ma’am. Take this quarter, go downtown and have a rat gnaw that thing off your face. And I get it.…

How to Contribute Code to the SQL Server First Responder Kit (Github)

July 21, 2016

Brent Ozar

So you’d like to fix a bug or contribute code to the First Responder Kit, but you’re new to Github. Let’s get started. 1. Open a new issue on Github. Go to the Github issues list for this repo, and start a new issue. Here’s the example that I’m going to work on today: Example…

New SQL Server First Responder Kit for 2016-07

July 18, 2016

Brent Ozar

SQL Server 2012 SP3, 2014 SP2, and 2016 users are going to find a lot of stuff to love in here. The new per-query memory grants fields in the plan cache are exposed in sp_BlitzCache, and sp_BlitzFirst also shows memory grants for live running queries in @ExpertMode = 1. Here’s the details: sp_BlitzCache v3.1: Show…

Breaking News: 2016 Query Store cleanup doesn’t work on Standard or Express Editions

July 4, 2016

Brent Ozar

breaking news

If you’re using SQL Server 2016’s awesome new feature, Query Store, there’s a new bug with automatic cleanup. Books Online explains: Automatic data cleanup fails on editions other than Enterprise and Developer. Consequently, space used by the Query Store will grow over time until configured limit is reached, if data is not purged manually. If…

First Responder Kit Updated, and sp_BlitzFirst is now sp_BlitzFirst

June 28, 2016

Brent Ozar

We’ve released the first fully open source version of our SQL Server First Responder Kit: sp_Blitz, sp_BlitzCache, sp_BlitzIndex, sp_BlitzRS, sp_BlitzTrace, and the newest member: the newly renamed sp_BlitzFirst. I wanted to rename sp_BlitzFirst because as an open source project, it’s going to have more than just my own answers as to why your SQL Server…

We’re Renaming sp_BlitzFirst. What Should the New Name Be?

June 21, 2016

Brent Ozar

Yesterday we announced that we’re open sourcing our free SQL Server scripts, and one of those is sp_BlitzFirst. I originally named it that because it had a funny magic-8-ball type feature: if you pass in a question as a parameter, it gives you an answer like “Outlook not so good, Access even worse.” Cute, but now…

sp_Blitz v51: @IgnorePrioritiesAbove = 50 gets you a daily briefing

May 26, 2016

Brent Ozar

You have a monitoring tool, but you’ve set up an email rule to dump all the alerts into a folder. You’re not particularly proud of that, but it is what it is. You’re just tired of the spam. Group query in the registered servers list But when you get in in the morning, you want…

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

March 21, 2016

Brent Ozar

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…

Using sp_BlitzCache™ Advanced Features

November 12, 2014

Jeremiah Peschka

sp_BlitzCache is a fantastic tool for finding the worst queries in your SQL Server. Did you know that it has a number of advanced options available to you? These options can help you dig into your worst queries, slice and dice the data, and get back exactly what you need, without wading through hundreds of results.…

Why You Shouldn’t Use SQL Server’s Activity Monitor

October 21, 2014

Kendra Little

I love free tools. I also love analyzing SQL Server’s wait statistics. But I’m not a fan of Activity Monitor, a free tool in SQL Server Management studio, which helps you look at wait stats. Activity Monitor just doesn’t give you the whole truth. I fired up a workload with HammerDB against a test SQL Server 2014 instance.…