DBA work, career development, hiring, role expectations, and team practices.
210 associated posts133 primary posts
Iceland has some pretty famous waterfalls, from Þórufoss and Skógafoss in Game of Thrones, to Háifoss in Stranger Things, to Dettifoss in Prometheus, and more. However, probably the most-photographed one is Seljalandsfoss, partially because of its easy access from the Ring Road, and partially because of, uh, Justin Bieber's video for I'll Show You. That video is also a pretty good intro to the greatest hits of Iceland's south coast.
On a 12-hour layover in Keflavik, I pulled over my Suzuki Jimny (love these little things, and we can't buy them in the US) in some of the freshest real estate in the world and took your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento. This is a 360-degree video, so you can move the camera angle around with your mouse.
For T-SQL Tuesday #199, Koen Verbeeck posed an excellent question: if your company moved up to the cloud, but after migrating, had to come back on-premises, what would be the big problems?
I've had clients in this exact situation! Here are some of my favorite gotchas from those experiences.
Let's go through a LOT of your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento on a VERY early Saturday morning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7lGcm8CyEM
Well, maybe mountain is a bit of a strong word, but it's one of the highest elevation home sites in Las Vegas, with beautiful views over the valley, the Strip, the airport, and the surrounding mountains. Let's go through your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento while taking in the view - and you can move the camera around, since this is an Insta360 video.
I'm up in North Bay, Ontario, Canada for the 2026 Can-Am Curling Cup run by Aaron Bertrand - and my team actually won!
Let's bask in the warmth (cough) of our glory as we go through your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento.
Yes, I'm back on a cruise ship with another 360 degree video. Lest you think I'm being wildly irresponsible (or responsible perhaps?) with your consulting and training money, be aware that this particular cruise was free thanks to the fine folks in the casino department at Norwegian Cruise Lines. In between beaches and blackjack, let's go through your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento.
Let's hang out in my home office in Vegas and go through your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento. The audio's a little echo-y in this one because I just moved my office down to a small first floor guest bedroom with hardwood floors instead of carpet, and I haven't treated the room for noise yet.
On the world's largest floating electronic dance music festival, I took your top-voted database questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dk1kb6fM21E
The results are in! You can download the raw data in Excel for all 10 years and do some slicing and dicing to find out whether you're underpaid, overpaid, or what it looks like for folks who are out there looking for work. This year, I added a couple of new items to the survey…
You're busy, so I'll keep this short.
Several months from now, you're gonna have a salary review. Your manager is going to ask what you've been up to, and you're not going to have a lot of great answers. Copilot isn't tracking your successes for you.
This seems like the appropriate first BrentOzar.com blog post in the year 2026, eh?
In the PollGab question queue for Office Hours, MyRobotOverlordAsks asked a question that merited a full blog post answer:
The Dotonbori area of Osaka is like a video game version of Japan: wild, over-the-top neon signs, awesome street food, cool street markets, Kabuki theater on a revolving stage, and more. It's very touristy, but as touristy places go, it's fantastic. Last year when I was here, I filmed Office Hours at the river, but this time around let's go into one of the side streets where the food vendors gather.
When you ask data people how they feel about AI, you get pretty rabid, extreme reactions. People either love it or hate it. Set that aside for a second, and let's zoom out and think about a bigger picture question.
What's it like to work with someone you know, versus a stranger?
You've got a good job, and some spare time. You're thinking about giving back to the community by blogging, presenting, live streaming, or working on Github projects - and you'd like to make your next job search easier. Let's talk about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQ3TuMM4cEQ
There was an interesting post on Reddit yesterday asking what DBA jobs are like these days. Here's a snippet of the most important part: Our friend works for maybe 15 hours a week, on call for maybe 40 but is always running around not in front of his computer. She works odd hours, takes the…
One of my readers asked me to give a 30-minute talk to their company's internal employees discussing the job market at large. The target audience was technical people of all disciplines - not just database administrators, but all kinds of people who worked with technology.
My goal with the talk was to help people think about lots of possible next-steps in their career journey. I wanted to show how the skills they've already developed might be useful in jobs they hadn't thought about before.
When I'm on the road, I try to take you along with me to glamorous or scenic locations to give you a change of pace. However, last week in London was a bit of a whirlwind between SQLBits and restaurants, so at the last minute, I recorded Office Hours in my hotel room!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8lURbMoKzk
I'm in the Detroit airport today, en route home after a client gig. I've got some time to kill, so let's go through your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yd59N2bWzQ
On a sunny Saturday afternoon, I made myself a highball and went through your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NLtbul3Nyc
