Joins, parallel execution, memory grants, spills, and adaptive execution.
93 associated posts89 primary posts
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.
Our cruise ship pulled into port in Victoria, Canada, so before we head out to the Butchart Gardens, let's go through your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDTuQFiXo2s
The official Azure SQL Dev's Corner blog recently wrote about how to enable soft deletes in Azure SQL using row-level security, and it's a nice, clean, short tutorial. I like posts like that because the feature is pretty cool and accomplishes a real business goal. It's always tough deciding where to draw the line on how much to include in a blog post, so I forgive them for not including one vital caveat with this feature.
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
Back in March 2025 when Microsoft first announced that REGEX support was coming to SQL Server 2025 and Azure SQL DB, I gave it a quick test, and the performance was horrific. It was bad in 3 different ways:
The CPU usage was terrible, burning 60 seconds of CPU time to check a few million rows
It refused to use an index
The cardinality estimation was terrible, hard-coded to 30% of the table
SQL Server Management Studio 22 Preview 3 is out, and it brings with it a new Query Hint Recommendation tool. Start by highlighting the query you want to test, then click Tools, Query Hint Recommendation Tool. It slides out a new pane on the right hand side: The maximum tuning time defaults to 300 seconds,…
I use AI tools constantly in my work, so when the new SSMS v21 came out with Copilot support, I was excited to try it. The short story is that the user interface is fine, and it doesn't feel buggy, but the advice is simply terrible compared to other LLMs due to the prompt Copilot is using. You're better off using tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude directly for now.
Let's say we have a couple of update statements we need to run every 15 minutes in the Stack Overflow database, and we've built indexes to support them:
[crayon-6a6eb81681203914680837/]
This Query Exercise was very different: I didn't ask you to solve a particular problem. I pointed out that I've heard advice that SELECT MAX is faster than SELECT TOP 1, and that's not quite true. I asked you to find factors that would cause these two queries to get different execution plans: [crayon-6a6eb81681575145979007/] In the…
These two queries both get the same answer from the Stack Overflow database:
[crayon-6a6eb816817ce352193897/]
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.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12E_6VWKb_4
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.
https://youtu.be/xn2afGkPcmo
Like Sixteen Candles, but different: I go through your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento. Strangely, my video and audio is ever so slightly out of sync in this episode.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmward6JyOw
Back at home in the office, time to settle in with a nice caffeine-free Diet Coke and go through your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento. Why caffeine-free? Because I slug multiple coffees first thing in the morning when I wake up (usually around 3am-4am), and by the time I stream with y'all, I don't need any more go juice.
You know how this works: you posta the questions at https://pollgab.com/room/brento, and I giva the answers:
https://youtu.be/o1pDHHDS4R0
Got Azure SQL DB and SQL Server questions? Post them at https://pollgab.com/room/brento and I'll answer the top-voted ones. This episode comes to you from Dyrhólaey, where I was completely surprised to find puffins at this time of year.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIVKXZfAzwE
I took your questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento before heading out to pick up my Cadillac from the mechanic.
https://youtu.be/B02i8Ldgy_4
This one's broken up into two parts because I took a bio break mid-stream:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhFG3LllLug
Lots of good questions on today's broadcast! If you'd like to submit one, go to https://pollgab.com/room/brento and upvote the ones you'd like to see me cover.
https://youtu.be/phAwmrItoCY
If you've been following along with this week's posts on DATETRUNC and STRING_SPLIT, you're probably going to think the answer is no, but bear with me. It's Christmas week, right? The news can't all be bad.
GREATEST and LEAST are kinda like MAX and MIN, but instead of taking multiple rows as input, they take multiple columns. For example:
[crayon-6a6eb81681b5b985913119/]
Produces 3 and 1. This actually has really useful real-world implications.
