Installation, configuration, automation, health checks, and governance controls.
301 associated posts140 primary posts
Several years ago, I wrote a post about how I configure older versions of SQL Server Management Studio, but now that SSMS v21 is out, it's time to revisit that post. SSMS v21 is built on the Visual Studio shell, so it's got a lot of cool new tricks. Let's make sure you're using 'em.
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
First things first: pick up that filthy keyboard, take it over to the trash can, turn it upside down, and give it a good, vigorous shake.
Next, go to your biggest SQL Server and run:
When you think 'beach chair', this probably isn't what you think. I'm at a black sand beach on the south coast of Iceland, answering your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5j4TIuC54ak
Over the last several years, Microsoft has been putting less and less effort into Cumulative Update documentation. We used to get full-blown knowledge base articles about fixes, but these days, we get a collection of footnotes with deceiving hyperlinks that look like they're going to lead to more information - but they simply lead back to themselves.
I originally took these questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento poolside at the Trixie Motel (really), but I forgot to use the good microphone, so I re-recorded 'em from my home studio when I got back:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8booXqUYY-Y
My Asian vacation continues in Kyoto, the City of a Thousand Temples. They're not playing around - the town is chock full of gorgeous historic temples, and it was tough to pick a scene for today's Office Hours. Let's go through your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento:
https://youtu.be/6zpEXYeDH1Q
I took your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento. At one point, my camera overheats - hang in there, I get it fixed in a few seconds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PC9JokmIkuM
It's spooky time again! I visited Salem, Massachusetts again this year, this time for a friend's wedding. I ended up in the same spot next to the Charter Street Cemetery that I filmed at last year! I went through your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4WtTm3O4bA
Are your developers working with live production data, completely made-up synthetic data, or something in between? I posted a poll here on the blog and on a few of my social media feeds, and here were the results:
Note that the numbers can add up to more than 100% because folks could mark multiple choices if they had multiple teams with different approaches.
I took a break from unpacking my SQL Saturday San Diego bags and re-packing for a Boston wedding long enough to take your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento.
https://youtu.be/Z0GSjyK2bps?si=5u3bMm8MYFkHViBD&t=29
On an unbelievably calm sea day off the shores of Canada, aboard the Norwegian Jewel, I enjoyed a nice cup of completely alcohol-free coffee (as far as you know) and took your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NzgNMkQ8gU
I took your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento while recovering from a late night of partying.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iS1uJCDmMA
Last week, we had an abrupt intro, and this week, we have an abrupt ending when my camera overheats, hahaha:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQOk2N3ljCc
I ran a poll over on LinkedIn to find out if people have 100% of their databases under some kind of source control or version control.
I broke the answers up into two sets, developers and non-developers, because I had a hunch that the developers' answers would be very different than the rest, and indeed they were:
On a pleasantly mild morning, I sat down on the patio and took your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4chYaiYUaSk
"The last person must have set it up that way."
"The last person wrote that code."
Ola Hallengren's free maintenance solution is widely used as a replacement for SQL Server maintenance plans. It's a more powerful, flexible tool for backups, corruption checking, and index & statistics updates. If you're using it for backups, there are two quick, easy changes that can dramatically reduce your nightly job runtimes. First, set @NumberOfFiles =…
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
I was chatting with a client's DBA about this thought-provoking blog post about data governance in the age of generative AI. The DBA's concern was, "What if we hook up generative AI tools to the production database, and someone asks for, say, recommended salary ranges for our next CEO based on the current CEO's salary? Will the AI tool basically bypass our row-level security and give the querying person information that they shouldn't be allowed to see?"
