[Video] Office Hours at Sea: Leaving Juneau
I stopped piloting the ship long enough to answer your top-voted database questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtEZMVVVi_U
Plan Cache, Query Store, and Query Analysis
Using query history, cached plans, and runtime data to investigate performance.
200 associated posts60 primary posts
[Video] Office Hours: 25 Pretty Good Questions
You post questions at https://pollgab.com/room/brento and upvote the ones you'd like to see, and my job is to come up with accurate answers on the fly. Let's see how I did.
https://youtu.be/UtX2rLjewbw
How to Go Live on a New Version of SQL Server (Like 2025 or 2022)
You're planning to migrate to a new version of SQL Server, and you want your databases to be faster after the migration. This is NOT a blog post about how to migrate - that's the same as it's been for a long time. Go build the new 2025 servers, and use log shipping or database…
What Does Setting the SQL Server Compatibility Level Do?
If you right-click on a database in SQL Server Management Studio, you get an option to set Compatibility Level at the database level:
When you upgrade SQL Server or you want to improve performance, which option should you choose? Should you always go with the newest compatibility level? If you have an old application, can you upgrade SQL Server but still keep the old compat level without the vendor knowing? Let's hit the common questions.
[Video] Office Hours: Ask Me Anything About Azure SQL DB & MSSQL
Post your questions at https://pollgab.com/room/brento and upvote the ones you'd like to see me answer.
https://youtu.be/V5illj_KOJg
[Video] Office Hours: Ask Me Anything at Sea
It was a dark and stormy morning, on the last day of my Panama Canal cruise. Before I perished, I sat down to answer your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento.
https://youtu.be/lAMRoB1LyWE
Office Hours: Bad Questions Edition
Normally, y'all post and upvote great questions at https://pollgab.com/room/brento, but in today's episode, y'all upvoted some stinkers. Buckle up.
https://youtu.be/FF6QOt4Y6dM
T-SQL & Development
#tsql2sday: Start Your Dynamic SQL with a Comment.
When you write dynamic SQL, start like this:
[crayon-6a70639989443116075660/]
Right after the SELECT (or INSERT or UPDATE or whatever), immediately put a comment - using /*, of course, because you're not a terrible person.
That way, when you're looking at the plan cache or monitoring tools, you can see what generated the dynamic SQL, and where you need to go if you need to performance tune or fix it.
Production DBA
Erik Darling’s Month of Free Tools Training
Over the past month (plus or minus a couple days), Erik Darling churned out dozens of posts to show how he uses different SQL Server Community Tools that are free and open source to troubleshoot SQL Server issues. You should read all of them. I did. (I also shamelessly copy/pasted this intro, plus the below, directly from his blog.)
[Video] Office Hours in Tel Aviv, Israel
Before speaking at the Data TLV Summit, I sat by the Mediterranean Sea and discussed the top-voted questions you posted at https://pollgab.com/room/brento.
https://youtu.be/YI5HeS_Nvjs
Community Tools Month: Using sp_WhoIsActive to Catch ASYNC_NETWORK_IO
When your SQL Server's top wait stat is ASYNC_NETWORK_IO, that indicates SQL Server is waiting on the app to ask for the next part of the result set.
This is a real pain in the rear to troubleshoot because often these waits happen for really short duration each time - think milliseconds, not seconds. It's an issue of death by a thousand cuts.
[Video] Office Hours: Hotel Balcony Edition, Part 2
Post your questions at https://pollgab.com/room/brento and upvote the ones you'd like to see me cover. In today's episode, I sit down on a quiet hotel balcony and talk through a bunch of interesting questions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJAwgkhq_Z0
Performance Tuning
PSPO: How SQL Server 2022 Tries to Fix Parameter Sniffing
Parameter sniffing is a notorious problem for Microsoft SQL Server because it tries to reuse execution plans, which doesn't work out well for widely varying parameters. Here's a primer for the basics about how it happens. SQL Server 2022 introduces a new feature called Parameter Sensitive Plan optimization. I'm not really sure why Microsoft capitalized…
[Video] Office Hours: Speed Round Edition
Not all of the questions you post at https://pollgab.com/room/brento require long answers. Here's a quick speed round:
https://youtu.be/ABGL8CjAK4A
Production DBA
Office Hours, Text Edition: No-Brainer Questions
For my Office Hours streams on my Twitch channel, y'all post questions at PollGab and upvote the ones you'd like to see me discuss on the stream. However, not all questions require a video answer. Here are some simple no-brainer ones:
Q: BehindTheScenesDBA: With all its limitations, what do you think about memory-optimized tables? Have you recommended to a client to use it?
[Video] Office Hours: Ask Me Anything About SQL Server
I'm back in San Diego, so let's sit out on the balcony, enjoy a tasty beverage, and go through your top-voted questions from PollGab.com/room/brento.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7xa7H2kqkQ
[Video] Office Hours: SQL Server at Sunset
Let's kick back with a tasty beverage and go through your highest-upvoted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento on the beach:
https://youtu.be/hwRAwhcgCGU
[Video] Office Hours on the Balcony Part 2
Picking up right where we left off yesterday, we continue down through the not-so-highly-upvoted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saIwheS6_Mg
[Video] Office Hours Manhattan Edition: Ask Me Anything About SQL Server
I sat down on the edge of Brooklyn, overlooking the Manhattan skyline, to take your highest-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento.
https://youtu.be/fwn7IoPbJ6s
[Video] Office Hours: Ask Me Anything About SQL Server at the Volcano Hekla
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.
