SQL Server Radio

Guy and Eitan try something new for today's show - we interview ChatGPT as our guest for today, and make it pretend that it's a SQL Server expert!

Let's see how it does.

Relevant links:

• Monitor performance by using the Query Store
• Brent Ozar Unlimited
• SQLSkills
• Scary DBA
• SQL Authority
• PASS Data Community Summit
• SQLBits
• GroupBy Virtual Conference
• Data Platform Summit

Guy and Eitan share their experience from SQLBits 2023 and some of their favorite sessions.

Relevant links:

• Official SQLBits Website
• SQLBits Content Library
• SQLBits YouTube Channel
• SQL Server Debugging with WinDbg – an Introduction
• Join #TeamHugo and Help Fight Leukemia
• Parameter Sensitive Plan optimization
• Azure Functions overview
• GitHub CoPilot

Guy and Eitan discuss some new and existing capabilities in the SQL Server engine related to Intelligent Query Processing, and whether our job positions as DBAs are at risk due to the imminent takeover by our robot overlords.

Relevant links:

• Intelligent Query Processing
• Adaptive Joins (Batch)
• Intelligent Query Processing Feedback family of features
• Parameter Sensitive Plan Optimization
• Scalar UDF Inlining

Guy and Eitan list several common mistakes done by DBAs in SQL Server.

Some relevant links:

• Architecting Database Dev and Test Environments: Best Practices and Anti-Patterns for SQL Server
• Ola Hallengren's Maintenance Solution
• HADR My Jobs - Open Source Solution by Madeira
• Columnstore Indexes: Planning and Implementation
• TSQL Script to Check for Weak Passwords
• Script to Check for Max DOP Configuration Best Practice

Today we have the pleasure of hosting Rob Sewell, and talking about the upcoming SQLBits event of 2023!

Relevant links:

• SQLBits 2023 agenda, speakers, pricing, and registration - events.sqlbits.com/2023
• YouTube playlist of all 195 sessions from SQLBits 2022 - available for free!
• SQLBits helpers form - beard.media/sqlbits-helpers
• Rob Sewell's blog - blog.robsewell.com

Guy and Eitan finally celebrate the generally available release of SQL Server 2022! And also discuss other announcements from PASS Data Community Summit, and also various interesting news and features of Azure SQL announced in November 2022.

Relevant links:

• SQL Server 2022 is now generally available
• Consumption-based PAYG billing model for SQL Server 2022 on-prem
• PASS Data Community Summit
• Hug a DBA song by Killa DBA
• SQL Server 2022 song by Killa DBA
• The SQL Server Native Client has been removed from SQL Server 2022 (16.x) and SQL Server Management Studio 19 (SSMS). Switch to the new Microsoft OLE DB Driver (MSOLEDBSQL) for SQL Server or the latest Microsoft ODBC Driver for SQL Server going forward.
• Mid-November 2022 Public Preview updates to Azure SQL
  • Azure SQL database external REST endpoints integration in public preview
• Mid-November 2022 General Availability updates to Azure SQL
• Public Preview Azure SQL Managed Instance feature wave for November 2022
• General Availability Azure SQL Managed Instance feature wave for November 2022
• Learn more about the November 2022 Feature Wave for Azure SQL Managed Instance
• Azure SQL - General availability updates for late November 2022
• Azure SQL - Public preview updates for late November 2022
• DR Secondary licensing is free with Azure VM and SQL Managed Instance in PAYG model

Guy and Eitan play a game of word associations to spout a bunch of stuff about SQL Server features - mostly reviewing new system objects that replaced old DBCC commands, useful scripts in our toolbox, and talking about Application Reliability Errors.

Relevant links:

• Buffer Pool Extension
• SQL Server editions comparison dashboard by domains, features, and scale capacities – by Romain Ferraton
• SQL Server Standard vs Enteprise Edition features history – by Romain Ferraton
• SQL Server Scale Limits by Version and Edition - by Eitan Blumin
• sys.dm_os_buffer_descriptors
• Madeira Toolbox: Buffer Pool Distribution by Tables.sql
• Get the last known actual execution plan using sys.dm_exec_query_plan_stats
• sys.dm_db_page_info
• sys.dm_db_log_info
• sys.dm_db_stats_properties
• sys.dm_db_stats_histogram
• Madeira Toolbox: Shrink All Shrinkable Transaction Logs.sql
• Madeira Toolbox: Shrink_Transaction_Log_File.sql
• Madeira Toolbox: Application_Reliability_Monitor_SQLServer.sql
• Madeira Toolbox: Application_Reliability_Monitor_AzureSQLDB.sql
• PASS Data Community Summit 2022 - Register now!

Today we're pleased to have the one and only Itzik Ben-Gan hosted at our show again!

We talk about interesting SQL/T-SQL related topics, the experience of teaching, his new upcoming book edition of T-SQL Fundamentals, and more.

Relevant links:

• Itzik's personal web page at tsql.lucient.com
• Itzik Ben-Gan's Blog posts at SQLPerformance.com
• SQL Server Central - Question of the Day
• Even more fun with DATETIME arithmetics (Eitan Blumin)
• The Itzik Ben-Gan Trick (batch processing hack)

Guy and Eitan discuss a few new features in SQL Server 2022, and Guy tells a story about an interesting use case where a customer accidentally dropped their encryption keys in production.

Relevant links:

• SQL Server 2022 RC0 is now available!
• Azure Active Directory authentication for SQL Server 2022
  • Tutorial: Set up Azure Active Directory authentication for SQL Server
• Bidirectional Transactional Replication in SQL Managed Instance
• Considerations on Bidirectional Transactional Replication
• Azure Data Studio August release with SQL Server 2022 support
• Create identical symmetric keys on two servers - Microsoft Docs
• BACKUP SYMMETRIC KEY (Transact-SQL) - New SQL Server 2022 Syntax
• Troubleshooting Long-Running Shrink Operations - Eitan Blumin
• Shrink_Database_File_in_Specified_Increments.sql - Madeira Toolbox
• Too Many Plans for the Same Query Hash - Eitan Blumin

Today, Guy has a lot of tips to share after reviewing one of those... "problematic" customer environments. Let's just say that he's got his hands full. But it's still fun, and you get to learn as well!

Relevant links:

• Forced Parameterization | Microsoft Docs
• Forced Parameterization Can Lead to Poor Performance | Microsoft Tech Community
• Why Multiple Plans for One Query Are Bad | Brent Ozar
• Relevant scripts from our Madeira Toolbox:
  • Find Unused Indexes
  • Find Redundant Indexes
• Join, Query, and Table Hints (Transact-SQL) | Microsoft Docs
• Indexed Views | Microsoft Docs
• Second Normal Form

Guy and Eitan discuss their favorite upcoming new features in SQL Server 2022, and talk about some major upcoming events and summits.

Relevant links:

• SQL Server 2022 public preview is now available on Linux
• Introducing the SQL Server 2022 blog series by Bob Ward
• Contained Availability Groups in SQL Server 2022 | Eitan Blumin
• What is a contained availability group? | Microsoft Docs
• Erik Darling Blog series about Parameter Sensitive Plans
• XML Data Compression in SQL Server 2022
• Link feature in Azure SQL MI for SQL Server
• Welcome to the new Azure SQL Database local development experience
• Planning new scenarios and use cases for Azure SQL Database local development experience
• DOP Feedback In SQL Server 2022
• Upcoming community events:
  • Data Platform Virtual Summit (by Data Platform Geeks)
  • PASS Data Community Summit
• Madeira Toolbox Scripts:
  • Compare SQL Server instance properties
  • Change Tracking Generic Synchronization.sql 

Guy and Eitan talk about a lot of exciting announcements and announcements about a lot of excitements! Does this even make sense? I don't know! Listen to the show to find out!

Relevant links:

• How to HADR Your SQL Jobs
• Contained AlwaysOn Availability Groups Overview
• Pedro Lopes's Slides Deck for SQL Bits 2022
• How to Identify and Fix TempDB Contention
• The Best Solution for SQL Server Partitioning Sliding Window
• Roll_Forward_Transaction_Log_Backups.sql
• Restore-DbaDatabase (DbaTools)
• Tsql2sday - My First Technical Job

Also, we talk about performance considerations of partitioning in SQL Server, a blog post series about how to tune performance, and new scripts in our Madeira Toolbox on GitHub.

Relevant links:

• Data-tier Applications (DACPAC and BACPAC)
• About: Snapshot Replication
• Generally available: Azure Virtual Machines increase storage throughput by up to 300%
• Generally available: Announcing Azure SQL Migration extension for Azure Data Studio
• Public preview: Reverse Migration of Azure SQL Database Hyperscale tier to General Purpose tier
  • Limitations for Reverse Migration
• SQL SERVER – Table Partitioning for Slow Performance | Pinal Dave
• How To Tune Performance - Chapter 4: Common Problems | Sagi Amichai
• Find Redundant Indexes with Recommendations for all Databases | Madeira Toolbox

Guy and Eitan discuss upcoming events and conferences in 2022, and also about new features in SQL Server 2022, and more.

Relevant links:

• Conferences:
  • SQL Server & Azure SQL Conference
  • Data Platform Virtual Summit 2022
  • DataGrillen
  • PASS Data Community Summit 2022 (registration is open!)
• Get Ready for SQL Server 2022
• Get Azure recommendation in Azure SQL Migration extension
• Madeira Toolbox Roundup:
  • Linked Server Vulnerability.sql
  • Maintenance of Azure SQL Databases via Azure Automation and Powershell
  • Balance CPU Cores Across NUMA Nodes.sql
  • Database Design Best Practice Checks.sql

In today's show, Guy and Eitan host the co-founders of EverSQL, Oded Valin and Tomer Shay. We talk about their automated SQL tuning solution and SQL tuning best practices in general.

• eversql.com - Official Website
• Software Vendor Mistakes - Erik Darling Data

Relevant links:

• Cardinality Estimation: Combining Density Statistics | Paul White
• SQL Server CE: Multiple single-column statistics connected by AND
• SQL Server CE: Multiple single-column statistics connected by OR
• Detect Low PAGE Compression Success Rates in all Databases | Eitan Blumin
• The Curious Case of… tracking page compression success rates | Paul Randal
• The Ultimate Compression Savings Estimation Script for an Entire Database | Eitan Blumin
• SQLBits 2022 Conference
• Enterprise Data World 2022 Conference
• Buffer Pool Distribution by Tables | Guy Glantser
• Track Failed Logins in Azure SQL DB using RING_BUFFER_CONNECTIVITY
• Is SQL Server Profiler in Azure Data Studio? – SQLServerCentral
• Using the SSMS XEvent Profiler

Guy and Eitan discuss some interesting announcements and focus on the topic of Security in SQL Server.

Relevant links:

• Announcing new features for the SQL IaaS Agent Extension! - Microsoft Tech Community
• Troubleshooting SQL Server made easy via Notebooks – seeking your feedback - Microsoft Tech Community
• Veeam security breach: Backup “Removal” Solutions - From Conti Ransomware With Love
• sp_helprotect is very useful in permission issue - Microsoft Tech Community
• Databases and Guests - Vitaly Bruk
• Performance Tuning Like a Pro - with Hypothetical Indexes - Eitan Blumin
• Dynamic Data Masking in SQL Server
• Madeira Toolbox Roundup:
  • GUEST user with database permissions.sql
  • PUBLIC role with excessive permissions.sql
  • DBCC CLONEDATABASE (Transact-SQL)
  • Audit trace file binary search by timestamp.sql
  • Security_Audit_Default_Trace.sql
  • SQLSecurityAudit.sql
  • Detect Weak Passwords in SQL Server
  • track_logins_in_use_extended_events.sql

Guy and Eitan talk about the interesting new features announced in SQL Server 2022, a new sp_whoisactive version, and a bunch of Microsoft blog posts on Tech Community.

Relevant links:

• SQL Server 2022:
  • Announcing SQL Server 2022 preview: Azure-enabled with continued performance and security innovation
  • Introducing SQL Server 2022 | Bob Ward
  • Announcing the SQL Server 2022 Early Adoption Program
  • SQL Server 2022 | Official Microsoft
• The new version of sp_whoisactive - v12.00
• Extended Events to the Rescue - by Guy Glantser on SQLFriday
• New Microsoft support troubleshooting articles:
  • SQL Server CE: Multiple single-column statistics
  • SQL Server CE: Multiple single-column statistics connected by OR
  • Update Stats Sample Rate does not work
  • Use Orca.exe Tool to Verify Corrupted MSI/MSP file in Failed SQL Patching
  • Use Trace Flag 902 (TF902) to Bring Up Your SQL Service in Failed Post Upgrade Script
  • Prevent SQL Server Dump Generation in Hot Cases: Common Ways & Scenarios
  • Recover TDE Databases in Disaster : Recover Steps for 3 Common Scenarios

Guy and Eitan talk about some important news, about Availability Sets in Azure, and several useful T-SQL scripts in our Toolbox.

Relevant links:

• Azure Feedback is back!
• Troubleshooting SQL Server made easy via Notebooks – seeking your feedback
• Open sourcing the .NET 5 C# Language Extension for SQL Server
• Replication enhancements in the SQL Server 2019 CU13 release
• This episode was recorded on October 25th, before the important announcement about the release of SQL Server 2022. Check it out here.
• Availability Sets for Virtual Machines in Azure
• Madeira Toolbox Round-Up:
  • Certificate Management Scripts
  • Shrink All Shrinkable Transaction Logs.sql
  • Ola Hallengren Recommended IndexOptimize Examples

Guy and Eitan talk about various topics related to SQL Server, including upcoming virtual events, interesting new scripts from our toolbox, and more!

Relevant links:

• SQL Server 2016 SP3: Last Service Pack for SQL Server
  • SQL Server Release Dates and Product Lifecycle
• PASS Data Community Summit - November 8-12, 2021
  • Development Lifecycle Basics for DBAs
• Group By Conference 2021
  • SSDT Methodologies & Features for DB DevOps
• Level up your skills with Bicep!
• TRY/CATCH and Transactions in SQL Server:
  • TRY...CATCH (Transact-SQL)
  • @@TRANCOUNT (Transact-SQL)
  • XACT_STATE (Transact-SQL)
  • SET XACT_ABORT (Transact-SQL)
• Today's Madeira Toolbox Round-Up:
  • Table and Index High Unused Space.sql
    • DBCC CLEANTABLE (Transact-SQL)
  • DatabaseIntegrityCheck - Minimal check on PRIMARY, Full check on SECONDARY.sql
    • DatabaseIntegrityCheck by Ola Hallengren
  • Shrink_Database_File_in_Specified_Increments.sql
• SARGability Week by Erik Darling

Are you a data professional who needs to be able to convince people that you're right? Blythe Morrow is here to help!

Blythe Morrow is our special guest for today, teaching us tech folks how to talk and convince people about topics in regards to Data Platform technologies.

• Blythe Morrow on LinkedIn
• Blythe Morrow is a Pre-Con speaker at PASS Data Community Summit
• Blythe Morrow in: Meet the Pre-Con Speakers
• Paper Sword B2B
• Paper Sword B2B is also the agency behind the Group By Conference

Guy and Eitan discuss change automation tricks for databases, do a round-up of the newest scripts in the Madeira Toolbox, and more.

Relevant links:

• Database Change Automation:
  • DbaTools
  • sp_generate_merge by Daniel Nolan (readyroll)
  • Add support for "Prevent saving changes that require table re-creation" option in SqlPackage / SSDT (Azure Feedback)
    • (New feedback item at Microsoft Q&A)
• Madeira Toolbox Round-Up:
  • Missing Indexes with High Impact
  • Increase Database File in Specified Increments
  • SSRS Deployment Powershell script
  • Update RegisterAllProvidersIP and HostRecordTTL in all AG Clusters (multi-subnet best practice)
• AT TIME ZONE Performance Issues (Jonathan Kehayias)
• More about AT TIME ZONE (Jonathan Kehayias)
• Dativerse event by DataGrillen on August 13th

Guy and Eitan shoot the breeze about several interesting topics that you wouldn't want to miss out on!

Relevant links:

• SQL Server 2016 going out of mainstream support
• Intelligent Query Processing Capabilities in SQL Server
• Group by conference recordings on YouTube
• Dynamic search queries in T-SQL - THE NINJA WAY - by Eitan Blumin
• SQL Data Partners Episode 227: SSDT Methodologies for DB DevOps
• Data Platform Meetup Israel:
  • Call for Speakers
  • Wait Statistics - Torsten Strauss
  • Great Reasons to Run Your Cloud App on Azure SQL MI - Niko Neugebauer
  • 6 Techniques to Make SQL Server Speedometer Go Crazy - Amit Bansal
• Decrypting MSSQL Credential Passwords - NetSPI Blog
• How to Protect SQL Server from Hackers and Penetration Tests - Eitan Blumin
• Handy Powershell script templates to rule them all
• How to create indexed views ONLINE - by Michael J. Swart
• SQLCMD Template for Creating an Indexed View Online and Gradually Migrate Data Into it

Today we go over a list written by Kevin Chant about a year ago, and add some of our own insights.

Relevant links:

• Ten comments I think every SQL Server DBA wants to say | Kevin Chant
• Eitan's T-SQL Tuesday blog posts about automation and productivity:
  • T-SQL Tuesday #123 – Life hacks to make your day easier
  • T-SQL Tuesday #127 – Tips and Tricks to Automate Your Life
  • T-SQL Tuesday #130 – Eitan’s Laws of Automation
  • T-SQL Tuesday #135: The Tools of My Trade
• Test-DbaBackup Powershell cmdlet for automated restore tests
• Maintenance Script for Integrity Checks split into buckets per weekday
• How to Find which user deleted the database in SQL Server
• SQLWatch.io

We have two very special guests in today's show: the AzureSQL rockstars Anna Hoffman and Bob Ward!

Some relevant links:

• Azure SQL Fundamentals | Microsoft Learn
• Azure SQL for beginners | YouTube Playlist
• Digital event: Transform Your Applications with Azure SQL
• http://aka.ms/newsupdate
• https://aka.ms/sqlworkshops
• DataMinutes | Data Grillen
• SQL Saturday official site

Guy and Eitan discuss lots of interesting recent news, and also about various technical topics in SQL Server.

Relevant links:

• News about PASS and SQL Saturday:

  • What’s next for PASS Summit this fall? Ideas forum

  • The SQL Saturday Foundation Board of Directors

  • The new Azure Data Community webpage from Microsoft

  • PASS Summit 2020 session recordings

  • PASS Pro Educational Series at Red Gate University

• Data Saturday #1 Recordings Available on YouTube
• Around the Clock with Azure SQL and Azure Data Factory
• Microsoft Ignite 2021 Book of News
• Azure retiring a lot of services on February 29, 2024
• Azure Tips and Tricks: 5 Things you didn't know about Azure SQL Database
• SQL Server Automatic Tuning
• SQL Server Transaction Log And High Availability Solutions - Pros and Cons and more | Destin Joy
• Classic GUI issue or how to fix MAX Server memory too low | Vitaly Bruk

Check out the episode where we start movements to change the way everyone writes T-SQL code, and/or deliver data platform meetups!

And we also talk about a bunch of other stuff as well.

Relevant Links:

• Join the SQL Server Community Slack and our new channel #SQLServerRadio !
• Ask Us Anything: Database Performance Tuning and Optimization | Data Platform Meetup Israel
• Redgate Software takes over from PASS and commits to the future of the Summit, SQLSaturday and the community
• Educational Series (Red-Gate University)
• Database DevOps Considerations for SQL Server Availability Groups
• GenerateDeployReport method of DacServices | Microsoft Docs
• Database DevOps Implementation | Madeira Data Solutions
• I learned to love WHILE (true) and you should too | Eitan Blumin
• We’re taking Azure certifications for data and AI to the next level | Microsoft Tech Community
• Azure Data Fundamentals: Explore Core Data Concepts (Part 1) | Microsoft Reactor Tel-Aviv Meetup
• Watching out for Deferred Name Resolution

We have a special topic for today, where we talk about our own managed DBA service, and how we ended up choosing SentryOne SQL Sentry as our go-to monitoring platform for SQL Servers.

Relevant links with more details:

• DBSmart - The Managed DBA Service from Madeira Data Solutions
• SentryOne SQL Sentry
• clr_http_request - CLR assembly to send HTTP web requests from within SQL Server
• Case study - UPDATE STATISTICS causing TempDB stress and Availability Group fail-overs
• Madeira Data Solutions is a SentryOne Partner

Guy and Eitan host a very special guest and speak about various SQL Server and Data Platform topics, and recent events.

Relevant links: for more details

• Cassandra - Use cases: when to use and when not to use
• Community call for creating the fastest number series generator | Itzik Ben Gan
• SQL Server Feature Request: Adding Multi-column IN clause support by SQL Server
• mysqlbinlog — Utility for Processing MySQL Binary Log Files
• FAQ about the dissolution of PASS | Andy Mallon
• PASS alternatives and related links:
  • SQLSatHistory.com
  • SQLUGs.com
  • DataSaturdays Project (SQLCollaborative)
  • Microsoft resources for the SQL Server and Azure Data community
• SQL Governor - Proactive Microsoft SQL Server optimization, consolidation, and rightsizing powered by machine learning
• Columnstore indexes: Overview | Microsoft Docs
• The SolarWinds Orion Hack
• How to Protect SQL Server from Hackers and Penetration Tests | Eitan Blumin

Guy and Eitan take a break from talking about the PASS virtual summit, and celebrate with some interesting content.

Relevant links:

• Notes on the PASS Virtual Summit by Andy Warren:
  • Part 1
  • Part 2
  • Part 3
  • Part 4
  • Part 5
  • Part 6
  • Conclusions
• Satirical DBA Twitter accounts:
  • @TrumpDBA
  • @Bernie_DBA
  • @biden_dba
• Concatenating Strings in SQL Server | Guy Glantser
• Making a more reliable and flexible sp_MSforeachdb | Aaron Bertrand
• PrintMAX by Ben Dill
• PrintMaxMinified by Eitan Blumin
• Access Violation Error querying from system functions with parallelism
• SQL Server Cumulative Update releases are paused until end of December
• SQL Server TOP clause performance problem with parallelism | Neeraj Prasad Sharma
• What is MaxDOP controlling? | Pedro Lopes

Our guest for today is Yitzhak Khabinsky, a subject-matter expert on XML in SQL Server (among other impressive titles).

We deep dive into the topic of XML, its history, its purpose and limitations within SQL Server, and fascinating capabilities that you never knew about... And also, how does JSON fit in this whole story?

• Yitzhak Khabinsky | LinkedIn
• Azure Feedback item to update XML API engine in SQL Server
• Azure Feedback item to improve JSON capabilities in SQL Server

Guy and Eitan discuss PASS Virtual Summit 2020, what we should expect, whether it's worth the price tag or not, and discuss the future of the PASS organization.

Relevant links:

• https://www.pass.org/summit/2020/ 
• Imagine All the People | Guy Glantser
• SELECT TOP (3) Pre-Conference Sessions | Guy Glantser
• Why I’m Not Speaking at PASS Summit and You Shouldn’t Either | Joey D'Antoni
• https://sqlsaturday.com/
• https://pass.org/
• https://meetup.com/
• https://sessionize.com/
• https://sqlfriday.net/
• https://groupby.org/
• https://dataweekender.com/
• https://tsqltuesday.com/
• https://curatedsql.com/
• Eitan Blumin is a Data Platform MVP!

Guy and Eitan talk about recent and upcoming virtual events, and discuss the newly available runtime statistics at the operator-level in actual execution plans.

Relevant links:

• Data Platform Virtual Summit 2020
• Development Lifecycle Basics for DBAs - PASS Application Development Virtual Group
• Data Weekender #TheSQL Oct 17th
• SQL Workshops (Microsoft repository in GitHub)
• GroupBy.org
• Starting SQL: Measuring A Query (Eric Darling)
• SSRS with Basic Authentication (open-source sample project)
• SQL Friday #16: Eitan Blumin on “How to HADR Your SQL Jobs”
• The Most Important Performance Factor in SQL Server
• What does It Mean to Be an MVP? (Guy Glantser)
• See the Actual Execution Plan for any query

Guy and Eitan talk about Virtual Summits and free online courses, how to override SSRS authentication, and learn how to pronounce Eitan's name.

Also, we're terribly sorry in advance for the windy interferences!

Links:

• PASS Virtual Summit
• Modernizing Your Data Platform by Guy Glantser
• Azure SQL Bootcamp with Bob Ward & Anna Hoffman
• Free Courses by Kendra Little
• How to start with Azure Data Explorer - A new online course
• Overriding SSRS Authentication | Eitan Blumin
  • ReportViewerWrapper | Stefan Steiger
  • AspNetCore.ReportViewer | Stefan Steiger
  • SSRS Custom Security Extension Example | Microsoft GitHub
  • SSRS 2016 Anonymous Authentication (via Custom Security Extension) | Frans van der Geer
  • Configure Basic Authentication on the Report Server | Microsoft Docs

Guy and Eitan talk about several workarounds that boil down to using a solution for something other than its intended purpose.

Relevant links:

• Moving A Database to New Storage With No Downtime | Bob Pusateri
• Planning a Migration from Azure SQL DB to Azure Managed Instance | Eitan Blumin
• The Internals of the External SqlPackage Tool - Inside a bacpac File | Ronen Ariely (Data Platform Meetup Israel)
• Editing a .bacpac file | Microsoft Tech Community
• Blog post about Azure SQL Analytics | Eitan Blumin
• CosmosDB to SQL Server Migration Utility | Eitan Blumin
• TSQLEventsCollector Extended Events Buffer | Eitan Blumin (Gist)
• TSQLErrorsCollector Extended Events Buffer | Eitan Blumin (Gist)

Today we talk about all the exciting free events that we were involved with during May, with even more to come, and also some other interesting news!

Check them out:

• The Performance Tuning Magic Show by Guy Glantser (PASS Application Development)
• Accelerated Database Recovery by Guy Glantser (PASS Global Hebrew Virtual Chapter)
• SQL Server Setup Best Practices by Guy Glantser (GroupBy.org)
• Data Weekender Europe
• Development Lifecycle Basics for DBAs by Eitan Blumin
• SSDT Template with tSQLt and Azure Pipeline by Sander Stad
• Control SQL Jobs based on HADR Role – Taking it to the Next Level by Eitan Blumin
• Official SQL PASS Bloggers Lineup
• SELECT TOP (3) Pre-Conference Sessions by Guy Glantser
• SQL Friday
• Madeira Live Webinars in Hebrew
• Madeira Toolbox on GitHub
• Using Extended Events as an Events Buffer

Today's show notes are quite a handful!

• Red Gate report about the State of Database DevOps
• Eitan's session about Development Lifecycle Basics for DBAs
• Free  online  conferences  and  events:
  • Data Community Weekender Europe
  • Data Platform Discovery Day
  • GroupBy
  • DataPlatformGeeks Virtual Symposium
  • PASS Recordings Listing
  • Red-Gate Streamed
  • SentryOne Webinars
  • T-SQL Tuesday LIVE
  • Data Platform Meetup Israel
  • PASS Global Hebrew Virtual Chapter
• Free stuff from Madeira Data Solutions:
  • Free Webinars in Hebrew
  • Madeira Toolbox
  • Blog posts
• Some SQL Server technical stuff:
  • SQL Server Management Studio 18.5
  • How to migrate SQL data to Azure Cosmos DB
  • Microsoft Learn Module - Choosing Your Storage Approach in Azure

Eitan does his worst Donald Trump impression, and talks SQL Server stuff with Guy Glantser:

• Ola Hallengren's maintenance solution
• SQL Server Index Maintenance – You’re Doing It Wrong | Sean Gallardy
• Because Your Index Maintenance Script Is Measuring The Wrong Thing | Erik Darling
• How can UPDATE STATISTICS cause HADR disconnections?
• Eitan's File Size Maintenance Solution
• MCSA, MCSD, MCSE certifications retire; with continued investment to role-based certifications
• Azure SQL Managed Instance Performance Considerations | Tim Radney
• Azure Windows VM Sizes
• And more

This episode was recorded on March 8th, at the Microsoft for Startups podcast room in Tel-Aviv

Guy Glantser is co-hosting with Eitan Blumin for the first time, and we have a lot of topics to cover and catching up to do.

• PASS and SQLBits Conferences
• Storage Best Practices for SQL on IaaS in Azure
• SQL VM RP (Resource Provider)
• Guy's hopes for SQL Server setup options
• SQL Server 2019 features
• And more

After a very long break, today we come to you with a very special show, with a very special announcement to make. You do not want to miss this one!

Guy is back from New Zealand. We talk a little bit about his trip, about things that people shouldn't be doing with SQL Server, and more.

Guy is in New Zealand, so Eitan Blumin comes to fill in. We talk about:

• CI/CD with SSDT
• What is a Canary Query
• The best performance tuning feature, ROI wise
• Hierarchical partitioning
• Azure storage for SQL Server

In this show:

• MySQL, Vertica, Azure Data Explorer and Matan
• 24 Hours of PASS: Summit Preview 2019
• PASS Summit 2019: Session Schedule
• The Data Bias in Song Contests
• How SQL Server Compares Strings with Trailing Spaces
• Using Azure Data Explorer and Fastly to Improve Taboola Customer Experiences
• Kusto in Taboola – Azure Data Explorer

We had a technical issue with this month’s recording, so instead we’re going back to one of our favorite shows – Big Mistakes with Brent Ozar. Enjoy, and we’ll be back with new stuff in a few weeks.

Among other mistakes, we talk about:

• How did a company end up with a table named “C” Brent’s first database disaster ever
• Why Guy spent two weeks in Microsoft Belfast Fire in the data center
• How does a manager need to respond during a crisis How should you react when you mess up

In this show:

• Multi-Tenant Architecture Optimizations
• Parallel Update Statistics
• What's the Difference between CONTEXT_INFO and SESSION_CONTEXT?
• New Innovations for Analytics in Azure
• Gartner Hype Cycle
• SQL Notebooks in Azure Data Studio
• SQL Server 2017 Resumable Online Index Rebuilds

Matan is really passionate about Azure Data Explorer. He presented a session about it in the last Data Platform Meetup in Israel. In this show, Matan introduces this powerful analytics platform.

Check it out: Azure Data Explorer

In this show:

• What a Great Event SQL Saturday Israel 2019 Was
• What is the Fastest-Growing Major Programming Language in the World?
• Exploring Azure Storage for SQL Server DBAs
• How Microsoft Access is Ranked among Database Management Systems?
• Understanding Log Buffer Flushes

• SQL Pub Quiz
• The Keynote
• How to Make Sure Your SSIS Packages Will Never Fail by Guy Glantser
• Benchmarking in the Cloud by Gianluca Sartori
• Common Troubleshooting Techniques for AGs and FCIs by Allan Hirt
• Failover Detection Utility – Availability Group Failover Analysis Made Easy
• What's New - Query Performance Insights by Pedro Lopes
• Top 5 Tips to Keep Always On AGs Humming and Users Happy by Matt Gordon
• The SQLBits Party
• Patterns and Best Practices in SSIS by Richard Munn
• Build Hybrid Data Platform with Azure SQL Database and SQL Server by Kevin Farlee
• SQL Leadership Q&A by Microsoft
• PowerShell Medley by Jonathan Allen
• Validate Your SQL Server Estate with Ease Using dbachecks by Rob Sewell
• Select Stars: A SQL DBAs Introduction to Azure Cosmos DB by Bob Pusateri

In this show, we talk about:

• SQLBits 2019
• Guy is Bragging about Tel Aviv Marathon
• Microsoft Helps You Transform Your 2008 Server Applications with Azure
• MongoDB Database Skills - Sia Cheap Thrills Parody
• Matan is Bragging about Azure Data Explorer
• SQL Saturday Israel 2019
• Beware of MIN/MAX Aggregates Against Partitioned Tables

In this show, we talk about:

• What Happened in Samoa on December 30, 2011?
• Business Data Monitoring with Zabbix – Easily Done
• Matan Introduces Design Discussion #1
• Availability Group Parallel Redo
• Matan Introduces Design Discussion #2
• Power BI Desktop Q&A Data Interaction Examples

In this show, we are happy to welcome a special guest - Dekel Asaf, R&D manager at OM2. We talked about many things, among them:

• Always On - or "Mostly On"
• Why DBAs don't Use SSDT?
• Database Unit Testing
• Sliding Window

In this show, we talk about:

• Advanced Service Broker Sample: Asynchronous Triggers
• Azure SQL Database Availability Zones
• Microsoft Learn
• Magic Johnson
• Do You Trust Your Availability Group?

Can you believe it?

It's the 100th show!!!

We have been doing it for 5 years, and we are having so much fun!

We have been planning this show for a very long time, and we have some very special guests with us...

In this show we answered a listener's question about the 32-bit vs. 64-bit nightmare that developers have to go through when trying to access Excel files from SSIS.

And we also mentioned a script to roll forward transaction log backups.

The next show is the 100 show!!! We are planning a big party! Stay tuned...

In this show, we talk about:

• How to Fix Orphaned DB Users Easily
• SSMS Auto-Recovery Feature
• Multi-Tenant Database Challenges
• Your DR Plan isn’t a Plan
• And much more...

Show Notes: 

• How to Set Up Availability Group with a Domain Account
• How to Start SQL Server Without Tempdb?
• Auto-Commit vs. Implicit Transactions
• What's between Corruption and Blocking?
• What Machine Learning Can Do?

Show 96 is here. Among other stuff, we talked about: 

• SQLGrillen 2018
• Simulating IGNORE NULLs Functionality on FIRST_VALUE and LAST_VALUE Functions
• Database Corruption Story
• Query Store, Automatic Query Tuning, and how they relate to automatic card

it's been very busy lately, and Guy is currently abroad, so we're posting something a little different.

For the 100th show of the Hebrew edition, we celebrated with 5 panels about different topics we held on SQLSaturday Israel.

One of the panels was about programming best practices in SQL Server, and conveniently, it was in English.  

We'll be back in two weeks with a regular show.

Enjoy!

In this show, we talk about:

• Google Duplex
• Accessing External Resources from SQL Server
• SQL Saturday Israel 2018
• 24 Hours of PASS
• Optimizing Server-Side Paging
• How to Change the Fonts in SSMS
• And more..

Today in the show, we solve (well, almost) a SQL Server crossword by Kenneth Fisher...

Today in the show:

• The Best SQL Server Five-Words Tech Horror
• MongoDB Aggregation Feature in Azure Cosmos DB
• Data Discovery and Classification in SSMS
• Managing Multi-Tenant Applications
• Which One is Better? IN or BETWEEN?

Today in the show:

• How to Schedule a Failover
• Use Inline Functions Instead of Scalar Functions
• Guy’s Productivity Guide
• Maintenance Plans Security Hole!
• And More…

Today in the show:

• SSMS Unuseful Tips
• Why Database Continuous Integration is Challenging?
• Monitoring Page Splits

Today in the show:

• How to Deploy Schema Changes with Zero Downtime
• We are All Experts in Identifying Cats
• How to Troubleshoot Application Timeouts
• Signs You are not a Senior DBA
• SQL Saturday Israel Precons Announced

In this show, we talk about everything that's new in SQL Server 2017

There are many ways to write efficient queries in SQL Server. In this show we talk about a few of those ways, when the key is - "keep it simple". In addition, we talk about use cases for Big Data, Ways for transferring data to a reporting server, an interesting BI project Guy is working on, and more

In this show, we talk about:

• How to tell if you have a CPU problem in a virtualized environment
• SQL Server setup tips
• Guy's experience from his data science course
• How we change over time
• More productivity tips

In this show, we share some client stories from recent projects:

One nice thing of being a consultant Another consolidation project with a client implemented with views Performance recommendations from a client project Trivial optimization vs.Simple Parameterization Some challenges when working with MySQL

In this show:

* The challenges of consolidation projects * What is the Remote Query Harden error with Availability Groups * PASS Summit precons * Describe your profession in one sentence * What if Clippy came to SSMS? * The right ways to manage open transactions

In this show, we talk about:

• Our sessions at the GroupBy conference
• Another difference between the old and new Cardinality Estimators
• Lightweight Profiling in SQL Server 2016 SP1
• Sign Matan's wife is married to a DBA
• SSDT 2017
• A cool SSMS shortcut

Today in the show, we talk about:

• Another optimization for cases where you have to use cursors
• How to migrate a database to a lower version
• Paging in various SQL Server versions
• And more..

In this show, we host our good friend and great DBA, Shy Engelberg.

Together with Shy, we talk about:

• Guy's new online course - Advanced Query Tuning in SQL Server
• How to write queries for dynamic search screens
• Use cases for MongoDB and Machine Learning
• What is the adaptive query plan feature
• How Shazam works, and how it's related to the show
• Thoughts on HA and DR,
• Thoughts on SQL Server licensing
• Thoughts on bringing Azure features to the ground

Inside the show, you'll also find a coupon code for the course

In this show of SQL Server Radio:

• Transactional Replication tips
• How to self destruct a SQL Server Agent job
• Storage at speed of memory on Windows Server 2016 and SQL Server 2016
• Database backup and in Amazon RDS
• Writing and syncing files to AWS s3
• Mapping a partition to a filegroup in a partitioned table
• A cool Twitter account for monitoring fixed SQL Server issues

PASS Summit is next week, and in this show, we cover the sessions, the parties, the networking opportunities and the other goodies of the summit.

We start the show with a game of Yes/No questions. 

Afterwards, we talk about:

• Must we wait to service pack 1 before installing a new SQL Server version?
• Comparing wait stats between dates
• Tests when upgrading to SQL Server 2016
• Paul Randal's waits and latches library
• And more..

Show 56 is here, and this time we talk about:

• Itzik Ben-Gan's ways for unpivoting data
• Auditing every change in every table
• The Dunning-Krugher Effect and how it's related to new technologies
• Use Cases for XML and JSON
• Some differences between SQL Server and MongoDB
• Transactional consistency between different databases in an Availability Group
• Agent Profiles in SQL Server replication
• The best "feel good" song in history

Items mentioned in the show:

• Itzik Ben-Gan - Unpivoting Data
• Noa Brodezky - How to Audit Changes for Every Table in SQL Server
• Matan's 24 Hours of PASS session - MongoDB for the SQL Server Professional
• Guy's 24 Hours of PASS session - From XML to JSON

Today in the show, we:

• Check whether Set Nocount On is still needed
• Extract data easily
• Deep dive into Always Encrypter
• Unmask Dynamic Data Masking
• Check why we don't get emails about deadlocks
• Check why a monitoring software couldn't monitor

Items mentioned in the show:

• Paul Randal's Waits and Latches Library
• SQL Table Zip
• Phil Factor - Unmasking the Dynamic Data Masking
• Gianluca Sartori - Unmasking the Dynamic Data Masking (easier)

As always, if you have any questions, comments or interesting stories, drop us a line and we'll talk about them.

Itzik Ben-Gan has many T-SQL tricks.

In this show, we talk about a few of them:

• How to get Batch Mode Processing with regular tables
• How to share Identity between different tables
• How to use Cross Apply for Unpivot

In addition, we talk about what SOS_Scheduler_Yield means and answer the question - is it always the DBA's fault?

If you would like your question to be featured on the show, just head over to SQLServerRadio.com, drop us a line, and we'll talk about it in one of the upcoming shows.

Items mentioned in the show:

• Itzik Ben-Gan - What You Need to Know About Batch Mode Window Aggregate Operator in SQL Server 2016

Guy is back from a one month trip in the United States, and we're back with another show of SQL Server Radio.

In this show, we talk about a few of our upcoming speaking gigs (PASS Summit and SQL Server Days in Belgium), about File-Snapshot backups in SQL Server 2016, about triggers in DB2, SQL Server 2016 CU1, about where to spend your thinking time, and more.

Tomaž Kaštrun (blog | twitter) about what Data Science is, what does a Data Scientist do, what insights is he looking for, what tools does he use, what is R, and what R integration in SQL Server 2016 means.

Tomaž Kaštrun  is BI developer and Analyst with more than 15 years of experience working with MS SQL Server and and 15 years of experiences on statistics and predictive analytics. He is a frequent SQL Server community speaker, blogger, delivering sessions on local user group meetings, PASS or Microsoft related events (PASS, 24HOP, SQLSaturday) and publishing articles related to SQL Server. He is working for Spar ICS GmbH / Spar Slovenija d.o.o. and is vivid coffee drinker.

What's new in SQL Server 2016?

In this show, we celebrate the official release of SQL Server 2016 and talk about the new features of the version.

We can't really believe it, but it's the 50th show of SQL Server Radio! Time does fly when having fun!

To celebrate the 50th show, we have a countdown of the top 50 SQL Server features of all time..with a small twist..

Most of us will have to deliver some kind of a presentation in our professional lives, whether it's inside the organization or at a conference. Today, we talk to Boris Hristov (blog | twitter) about this subject.

You might remember Boris from show 26 where we talked to him about Policy Based Management and Distributed Replay, but today he's in a completely different phase.

Boris started a company called 356labs that is targeted at helping speakers deliver better presentations. 

During our chat, we cover:

• Why it's important to start presenting, and how to start doing it
• How to correctly deliver a message during a presentation
• What should you ask yourself before delivering a presentation
• Why are images better at delivering a message
• How to start a company and get clients
• Many practical tips for presenting

Items mentioned in the show:

• 356labs.com
• Train the trainer series
• pexels
• pixabay
• fontsquirrel
• freedigitalphotos

In this show, we talk about:

• The top 100 percent trick and whether or not it works
• A weird bug that was solved in SQL Server 2012 SP2
• What is SSISDB and an Intersting tip for its maintenance
• How to start performance tuning a system
• Misconceptions about order
• Dynamic search conditions
• How to share data between stored procedures
• Our favorite sessions from today's 24 Hours of PASS
• How to be more productive and scale yourself
• And more..

Items mentioned in the show:

• Scott Hanselman - Scaling Yourself
• Erland Sommarskog's blog
• Tim Radney - Tuning: A Good Place to Start

Continuing the show from two weeks ago, we have another show with Brent Ozar we recorded when he was in Israel a few weeks ago.

This time, we talk about what a DBA needs to know in order to get a job in this day and age.

What should you know if you're a junior DBA? what should you know if you're a senior DBA? what are some interesting interview questions you might face?

We also spend a few minutes talking about SQL Server on Linux, whether it makes sense, what does it really mean, and what should any SQL Server professional know today. 

Items mentioned in the show:

• Brent Ozar - Secret Meeting Minutes for the SQL Server on Linux Decision*

Brent Ozar (Blog | Twitter) is the founder and owner of Brent Ozar Unlimited.

Brent loves pushing SQL Server past the speed limit and showing other people how to drive it faster. He enjoys translating between programmers, sysadmins, SAN admins, and project managers. They find the root of the problem quickly, together, and get everyone working towards the same solutions. For the best conversation in your life, ask him about:

• Microsoft SQL Server performance tuning
• Making kCura Relativity faster
• VMware ESX/vSphere virtualization
• Storage and SANs
• Server hardware
• How Tim Gunn can make it work

In this show, we talk to Lior King, DBA Team Manager at Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the company who manages the New York Stock Exchange.

Lior has many years of experience working with SQL Server, Oracle, .NET, MongoDB, Cassandra, and much more. We discuss the challenges and the MANY database systems that ICE works with.

Among other topics, we talk to Lior about:

• What happens under the hood when someone buys a stock
• How Lior's team integrates the many data systems for providing a full solution
• How ICE use SQL Server Replication for synchronizing data around the world
• What Lior is looking for in SQL Server 2016

Lior King is carrying more than 25 years of experience in the IT world.

His main expertise is database systems (SQL Server and Oracle), database programming, data access layers using .NET and NoSQL solutions (MongoDB, Cassandra and Hadoop).

He started as a developer in the army (MAMRAM graduate) then a DBA, a team leader, a software architect and consulting group manager.

He's always seeking to improve my skills as a technology professional as well as my managerial and business skills.

His specialties are SQL Server and Oracle database administration, architecture and programming, Dot Net framework programming, software infrastructure design, the Hadoop platform and NoSQL solutions.

Did you know SSMS can make sounds? We start the show with some interesting things you might do with it.

In addition, we talk about:

• SQL Server on Linux
• Hadoop fundamentals
• SQL Server 2016 eBook
• Changes to auto update statistics in SQL Server 2016
• New SQL Server 2016 database level configurations
• Distributed Availability Groups - what is it and use cases
• How AWS storage works

Items mentioned in the show:

• Guy Glantser - Hadoop Fundamentals
• Denny Cherry - How to make SSMS beep when a query is done?
• Introducing Microsoft SQL Server 2016: Mission-Critical Applications, Deeper Insights, Hyperscale Cloud, Preview 2
• Erik Darling - Changes to auto update stats thresholds in SQL Server 2016
• Brent Ozar - SQL Server 2016: The Death of the Trace Flag
• Distributed Availability Groups

In this show, we talk about a few projects we took part in and we're proud of.

In today's world where deployments to production are very frequent, continuous integration and testing code become more important than ever. 

In this show, we talk to Steve Jones (Blog | Twitter), the editor of SQLServerCentral.com about how to do it.

Among other topics, we talk to Steve about:

• His work at SQLServerCentral and his favorite parts over the years
• What he's looking for in SQL Server 2016
• What is continuous integration and how it can be done with SQL Server
• How to test your database code before it gets to production
• Data Quality Services and Master Data Services

Items mentioned in the show:

• SQLServerCentral
• Steve's Blog - Voice of the DBA
• Voice of the DBA podcast
• DBA Team - Steve on a horse
• Steve Jones - 100 Hours
• Josh Kaufman - The first 20 hours (TEDxCSU)
• tSQLt
• SQL Server Radio show 38 - DevOps, Cloud and Podcasting with Richard Campbell
• Practical Refactoring
• Redgate SQL Release

Steve has been working with SQL Server since 1991, when he became the accidental DBA for a SQL Server v4.2 system running on OS/2 1.3.Since that time Steve has worked with all versions of SQL Server at various jobs.

In 2001, Steve founded SQLServerCentral.com with Brian Knight, Andy Warren, and three other partners that were bought out the next year. In 2002, Steve left his job with Peoplesoft to manage SQLServerCentral full time as editor, publisher, and writer. Andy, Brian, and Steve continued to manage and grow SQLServerCentral until 2007 when it was sold to Red Gate Software along with Database Weekly (then Database Daily). At that time Steve went to work for Red Gate and has continued his work with SQLServerCentral and Red Gate since that time.

Steve regularly speaks at SQL Saturday and other technical events on career and technical topics, and enjoys meeting and interacting with the SQL Server community. If you are interested in inviting him come speak at your event, please feel free to contact him through email, Twitter, or Facebook. You can also get the text of his keynote talks.

Steve was first awarded the Microsoft MVP award in 2008 and has been renewed 3 times for his many contributions to the community. Steve holds an MCSE from NT 4.0, an MSITPro in SQL Server, and numerous other MCP certifications in SQL Server. He also has an undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia in Economics.

In this show, we talk about:

• External deadlines
• The RS.EXE utility and what it is used for
• Why you shouldn't use Task Manager to check how much memory SQL Server consumes
• The Lock Pages in Memory option
• Stored procedure execution options under Transactional Replication
• Instant File Initialization checkbox in SQL Server 2016 setup
• SQL Server Agent job history
• Fixed server roles and how to correctly configure logins in SQL Server 

Items mentioned in the show:

• Scott Murray - SQL Server Reporting Services RS.EXE Utility
• Gail Shaw - Stop using Task Manager to check SQL’s memory usage!
• SQLSaturday Israel
• Guy's Big Data seminar at SQLBits

Another two weeks have passed, and another show is live.

Today on the show:

• Error handling in SSIS
• Why Big Data systems use ELT and not ETL
• What Data Scientists do
• What Data Analysts do and why they need to know SQL well 
• Azure Data Factory and Azure Data Catalog
• Compressing and decompressing data in SQL Server 2016
• Configuration options for high-end SQL Server systems
• More SQL Server setup tips

Items mentioned in the show:

• Guy's SQLBits precon - Big Data Made Simple
• Jeff Smith - They Just Write SQL Statements
• Recommended updates and configuration options for SQL Server 2012 and later versions with high-performance workloads 
• Built-in functions for compression/decompression in SQL Server 2016

In this show, we talk to William Durkin (Blog | Twitter), an Englishman "stuck in Germany".

William just switched to being an independent SQL Server consultant, and we talk to him about going independent, how to price yourself the right way, and about many good SQL Server tips.

Specifically, we talk about:

• His way for becoming an independent consultant
• How to price yourself by value and not by time
• SQL Server Replication tips
• Tips for upgrading SQL Server with minimal downtime
• What is the meaning of 5 nines and how much technical and financial investments it requires
• When and how to use DNS aliases with your SQL Servers
• Dynamic Data Masking use cases
• Linked Servers performance tips

Items mentioned in the show:

• Double Your Freelancing - Student Success Story with William Durkin
• Global Azure Bootcamp
• SQLKonferenz

William is an independent SQL Server consultant from England (now in Germany). He has experience as a DBA in large multi-national SQL Server environments and is a regular speaker around Europe.

On this show, we talk to the famous podcaster, Richard Campbell (LinkedIn | Twitter).

Richard is the co-host of the .NET Rocks podcast, host of the RunAs Radio podcasts, and a long-time technology consultant and business owner.

We talk to him about Devops, the Microsoft data platform, the cloud and podcasting.

Among other topics, we cover:

• What is DevOps, and how the database fits in this kind of strategy
• The state of the Microsoft data platform and the new versions of SQL Server
• How Microsoft Azure competes with Amazon and Google Cloud
• Will you lose your job to the cloud?
• What was the original purpose of the relational model
• The history of the .NET Rocks podcast and how its done today

Items mentioned in the show:

• .NET Rocks Podcast
• RunAs Radio Podcast
• Goldman Sachs on Microsoft: 'We Were Wrong'
• Serial Podcast
• .NET Rocks Show 1220 - Next Generation Airliners Geek Out

Richard Campbell wrote his first line of code in 1977. His career has spanned the computing industry both on the hardware and software sides, development and operations. He was a co-founder of Strangeloop Networks, acquired by Radware in 2013 and spent five years on the board of directors of Telerik which was acquired by Progress Software in 2014. Today he is a consultant and advisor to a number of successful technology firms as well as the founder and chairman of Humanitarian Toolbox (www.htbox.org), a public charity that builds open source software for disaster relief. Richard is the co-owner and content planner of the DevIntersection (www.devintersection.com) group of conferences. He is also the host of two podcasts: .NET Rocks! (www.dotnetrocks.com) which publishes three shows a week to .NET developers and RunAs Radio (www.runasradio.com) which is a weekly show for IT Professionals. You can reach Richard at [email protected].

Do you know what FOMO means?

It means “Fear of Missing Out”, and it’s a term used in the startup and venture capital fields. However, it’s also relevant for us as DBAs, and we start the show explaining why.

Other than that, we talk about:

• Why you should be careful when using SQL Server’s Row Level Security
• Duplicate indexes
• The dangers of Indexed Views
• An important thing you need to know about Filtered Indexes
• Lots of ways to improve your productivity with Management Studio
• Allow Snapshot Isolation and Read Committed Snapshot

Items mentioned in the show:

• Startup podcast
• 356labs
• Matan Yungman – 5 Ways to Improve Your Productivity with SSMS
• Forum discussion: ALLOW_SNAPSHOT_ISOLATION and READ_COMMITTED_SNAPSHOT
• MCM readiness videos

We start to warm up the engines towards PASS Summit, which will take place in Seattle at the end of October.

Before the summit, we will host a few speakers to talk about their sessions and share some of the stuff you can expect to hear.

In this show, we have Bradley Ball (blog | twitter), Data Platform Management Lead at Pragmatic Works.

Among other topics, we talk to Bradley about:

• What you can expect to hear in Bradley’s PASS Summit precon and session
• Data architecture
• What is Microsoft APS and what’s important when working with it
• How Azure SQL Datawarehouse took the APS idea a step further
• Message queuing
• Bradley’s military career

Items mentioned in the show:

• Bradley’s PASS Summit session: Indexing Internals for Developers and DBAs
• Bradley’s PASS Summit precon: Optimize “All Data” with a Modern Data Warehouse Solution
• Jason Strate – sp_IndexAnalysis

We also talk about some weird meanings of the acronym “APS”.

Bradley Ball is a SQL Server MVP with about 15 years of IT experience. Bradley spent 8 years working as a defense contractor for clients such as the U.S. Army and The Executive Office of the President of the United States. He is the data platform management lead with Pragmatic Works and a Microsoft VTSP. He has presented at SQLSaturday, SSUGs, SQLRally, DevConnections, SQLBits, SQL Live 360, and PASS Summit. Bradley can be found blogging at http://www.SQLBalls.com.

A few months ago we hosted Sean McCown for a talk about indexing tips and backup performance.

On this show, we have Sean again.

Sean reveals tons of backup tips and tricks while talking about his new free product, Minion Backup.

Among other topics, we talk about:

• What are VLF’s and why it’s not good to have many of them
• When you SHOULD use shrink
• Why Sean doesn’t like Policy Based Management
• How to monitor backup progress
• Regular Expressions in SSMS

And as always with our guests, we play Scattergories, and Sean tells a VERY interesting story about cluster configuration.

Items mentioned in the show:

• Minion Backup
• Sean’s PASS Summit session – Monster Text Manipulation: Regular Expressions for the DBA
• Sean’s PASS Summit precon – The Enterprise Scripting Workshop

Sean McCown is a Microsoft Certified Master in SQL Server 2008. He is also a SQL Server MVP with over 20 years experience in databases. Sean is also founder and co-owner of the renowned website MidnightDBA.com where he records free SQL Server training videos and co-hosts the popular webshow, DBAs@Midnight.

We tried something new this time, and broadcast the show live on Persicope.

Periscope is a service by Twitter that allows each one to start a live broadcast anywhere and anytime from his phone or tablet. We will try it out a few more times, so watch for our announcements about future broadcasts on Twitter.

As for SQL Server stuff, among other topics, we talk about:

• SQL Server Developer Edition vs. Enterprise Edition
• Benchmarking Columnstore Indexes and Columnstore in SQL Server 2016
• Restoring transaction logs on Amazon RDS
• Log Shipping on disconnected servers
• Amazon RDS vs. Azure SQL Database
• Amazon Aurora
• Denormalization
• Foreign Keys

Links mentioned in the show:

• Matan Yungman – Columnstore Indexes: Questions and Answers
• Kendra Little – The Easiest Way to Restore Transaction Logs to a Point in Time

On this show, we host a good friend of both of us – Boris Hristov!

Boris (blog | twitter) is a SQL Server MVP from Bulgaria and a really passionate and efficient guy. He delivers a lot of technical training and also talks a lot about presentation design. We talk to Boris about those things and also about travelling, sports, work-life balance, and more.

Among other topics, we talk to Boris about:

• Boris’ community initiative, SQL Hangouts
• What is Policy Based Management and why is it so important?
• How can you use Distributed Replay in your environment?
• The importance of presentation design
• Data corruption
• Efficiency
• What is Tapout XT

Items mentioned in the show:

• SQL Hangouts
• Guy Glantser on SQL Hangouts about founding a company and work-life balance
• Matan Yungman (with William Durkin) on SQL Hangouts about transitioning from DBA to consultant
• Boris Hristov – Presentation Design – Why You Should Care?
• Boris Hristov courses on Pluralsight

Boris is a SQL Server Consultant and Pluralsight Author from Bulgaria who you can regularly see speaking at conferences all across Europe. He is also training companies and students in the “Art of SQL Server” and loves to share his knowledge online as part of podcasts, webcasts or on his blog – http://borishristov.com/blog/.

The fastest way you can reach him is on twitter where he writes under @BorisHristov and you can even join him for a SQLHangout which are video conversations that he hosts with people from the SQL Server community.

Two weeks have passed, and another show is here!

We start by talking about scary DBA sentences

We continue with PASS Summit 2015 and about the sessions we’ll deliver at the summit.

We then talk about:

• T-SQL code patterns
• interesting scenarios with small but very active SQL Server tables
• jobs that will be replaced by machines
• Tempdb Contention and improvements in SQL Server 2016
• The power of SQL for other data solutions like Couchbase and Azure Stream Analytics
• And more..

Items mentioned in the show:

• Kendra Little – Contest: Write the Scariest DBA Sentence
• PASS Summit 2015
• Matan Yungman – The Data Loading Performance Presentation (from 24 Hours of PASS)
• Dwain Camps – High Performance T-SQL using Code Patterns
• Matan Yungman – Can a SQL Server Table be Too Small?
• Will Your Job Be Done By a Machine?
• The Azure Stream Analytics Query Language
• Couchbase N1QL

A few shows ago, we talked briefly about Virtualization and mentioned it would be a good idea to have a Virtualization expert on the show.

In this show, we have David Klee (Blog | Twitter), one of the top Virtualization experts in the SQL Server space.

We talk to David about:

• What’s important to know when virtualizing SQL Server
• How to properly size your VM
• What metrics to monitor when virtualizing
• When to use SQL Server High Availability features and when to use them at the virtualization side
• When NOT to virtualize
• Some of David’s most challenging projects

In addition, we talk to David about starting a company and the life of an independent consultant.

David is a technologist that is lucky enough to have a job doing that which he enjoys – working in high technology, using cutting edge technology to make businesses more efficient. He is the Founder and Chief Architect of Heraflux Technologies, and travels around the country working with companies to reduce risk, improve performance, and virtualize their business-critical SQL Server infrastructures. David regularly contributes to the PASS Virtualization, Performance, and High Availability and Disaster Recovery virtual chapters. David also helps to run and coordinate the Omaha SQL Server Users Group.

David is also a member of the PASS High Availability and Disaster Recovery Virtual Chapter board. The virtual chapter meets the second Tuesday of each month for a one hour technical presentation on high availability and disaster recovery topics.

We have a different show this time – in which we play a game!

On each round, as in the famous Scattergories game, we draw a SQL Server-related term and have to tell an interesting story about it.

Along the way, we cover quite a few topics and situations we’ve been to in our careers, like the time a job ran for 14 hours, and the time a job didn’t finish at all.

At the end, both of us got 1 million points. Listen to know how.

On this show, we host Niko Neugebauer, a.k.a “Mr Columnstore”!.

On this very fun conversation, we talk to Niko about his various roles and activities, about the improvements Microsoft is making version after version, about SQL Server 2016, and of course, about Columnstore.

Among other topics, we cover:

• What people need to know about Columnstore
• How to use Columnstore the right way
• Columnstore and In-Memory OLTP improvements in SQL Server 2016

Niko Neugebauer is a Software Designer, living in Portugal.

In the recent years he’s being fascinated by data (big and small) and its analysis.

Niko also likes to write about Clustered Columnstore Indexes and SQL Server.

Niko founded and leads the Portuguese SQL Server User Group , and he’s the head of the organization committee for the SQLSaturday events in Portugal.

He works as a BI Consultant for OH22, where he creates intelligent solutions for Business with a focus on Data Quality.

Niko presents on the topics of Microsoft Data Platform around the world at SQLSaturdays, SQLBits, PASS Summit, User Groups and local events such as Microsoft BI Conference in Portugal.

He loves the human-computer interaction, and adores design, but most of all – he enjoys making technology to make life easier, and people more connected with each other.

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/webcaravela Twitter: http://twitter.com/NikoNeugebauer

We start show 21 with some inspiring quote competition (and ending with some as well).

During the show, we talk about:

• Index rebuilds and fragmentation
• How efficient Columnstore is in terms of IO
• Debugging stored procedures
• Uses for Log Shipping and why it’s still relevant
• Solving latch problems
• And more..

Items mentioned in the show:

• Niko Neugebauer – Columnstore IO

It seems like ages ago, but we had a pretty busy month on March, with lots of conferences and great time. We start the show by summarizing March Madness, with the presentations, the people, the parties and the food.

We then talk about:

• Things to take into account when upgrading to SQL Server 2014 and when installing a new server
• Windows Azure SQL Database backup options and new online features
• Cloud adoption considerations
• The top 10 presentations from PASS summit 2014
• And more..

Items mentioned in the show:

• Guy shares the holiday spirit at SQLRally Nordic 2015
• Top 10 sessions of PASS Summit 2014
• Azure SQL Database Backup and Restore
• Aaron Bertrand – More Azure SQL Database Online Operations
• SQL Server 2014 Upgrade Technical Guide

Show 19 was recorded at the SQLBits conference in London, where we had the pleasure to interview PASS President, Thomas LaRock (blog | twitter).

We talk to Tom about his long time volunteering at PASS and about his current role as the president of the organization.

Among other topics, we cover:

• What does it mean to be PASS president?
• What’s the path to being on the board of directors?
• How does Tom manage to balance between his job at Solarwinds, his role at PASS and his family?
• How did 24 Hours of PASS come to the world?
• What is PASS Summer Camp?
• And more..

Tom LaRock works as a Head Geek for Solarwinds, where his mission is to give IT and Data Professionals longer weekends.

He also serves as the president of the PASS board of directors.

He’s a Microsoft Certified Master, a SQL Server MVP, a VMWare vExpert, and also a Microsoft Certified Trainer. He has over 15 years experience in the IT industry in various roles such as programmer, developer, analyst, and database administration.

Tom is also the author of DBA Survivor: Become a Rock Star DBA and have participated in the technical review of several other books.

On show 18, we host Sean McCown, a.k.a Midnight DBA.

We start the show with some tips about working from home without hurting your productivity.

We then take a deep dive into two of Sean’s favorite topics: Reindexing and backup performance.

Sean shares quite a few tips regarding the two topics, and takes us into the bits and bytes of his new free maintenance solution, Minion Reindex.

Sean McCown is a Microsoft Certified Master in SQL Server 2008. He is also a SQL Server MVP with over 20 years experience in databases. Sean is also founder and co-owner of the renowned website MidnightDBA.com where he records free SQL Server training videos and co-hosts the popular webshow, DBAs@Midnight.

On show 17, we start the show with a small small-talk about a few cool researches.

We then dive in to SQL Server and talk about:

• Backup and DR to Azure
• Weird lock behavior
• Isolation Levels Visualization
• The risk of SQL Server ownership chaining
• Parallelism, Max Degree of Parallelism and Cost Threshold for Parallelism
• Azure row level security
• And more..

Items mentioned in the show:

• Tony Hawk Rides the Hover Board
• Michael J Swart – Visualizing Transaction Isolation Levels for SQL Server

We love working with SQL Server, but over the years, we’ve had some interesting, funny, sad and horrific cases related to it. On this show, we talk about some of those cases.

Among other topics, we talk about:

• How to bring SQL Server online when it has no tempdb files
• Stored Procedure and Plan Cache optimization over the phone
• Finding out who dropped a database
• A very destructive MERGE statements that kills clusteres
• Data corruptions
• Table variable horrors
• And more..

Items mentioned in the show:

• Matan Yungman – The Strange Story About the MERGE that Killed the Cluster
• Paul Randal – Advanced Data Recovery Techniques
• Russ Thomas’ Monthly DBA Challenge

If you like the show, please consider leaving a short review about the show on iTunes. 

2015 started well, fast, and furious.

We start the show by congratulating Guy for earning the MVP title, and Guy explains what he did in order to get this achievement, and what you can do to earn it too.

We also talk about the crazy March we’re going to have, with a lot of flights, conferences and many other events.

In addition, talk about: 

• A weird scenario of updating a table using a view
• How to perform an ordered update efficiently
• What to expect when transitioning from DBA to consultant
• Parameterization
• Productivity and learning optimizations
• DBA challenges
• Physical joins
• And more..

Items mentioned in the show:

• Guy Glantser – I’m a SQL Server MVP!
• Matan Yungman – Things I learned in 2014
• Guy Glantser – Parameterization Part 7: Summary
• Matan Yungman – What to Expect When Transitioning from DBA to Consultant
• Russ Thomas – Monthly DBA Challenge
• SQL Hangouts

On this show, we talk about monitoring in SQL Server. But actually, monitoring is not only monitoring: It’s also baselining, data collection, data analysis, reporting and alerting, and we cover all of those in the show. Among other topics, we talk about:

• The different levels of monitoring
• Why it’s important to have a baseline
• Trend analysis
• What should you monitor in SQL Server
• The set of tools for monitoring, baselining, data collection, reporting and alerting
• What should you do when you get an alert about a certain problem
• And more..

Items mentioned in the show:

• Conor Cunningham – Managing 1 Million+ DBs-How Big Data is used to run SQL Azure
• Maria Zakourdaev – Alert Visualization Recipe

Happy 2015, everybody!

Show 12 is here, and yet again we have a mix of various SQL Server topics. Among them are High Availability, development, performance, Columnstore Indexes, Azure, and general news and events.

More specifically, we talk about:

• How log backup and Log Shipping really work
• What parts of SQL Server Memory does the Max Server Memory option controls
• Performance differences between Row_Number and CROSS APPLY
• A disturbing bug with the SYSDATETIME function
• Clustered Columnstore Indexes, and how Rebuild and Reorganize work on them
• Azure Storage
• SQLRally and SQLBits conferences
• And more..

Items mentioned in the show:

• Guy Glantser – SQL Server Developer Tips that Can Save Your XXX
• Matan Yungman – Rebuilding and Reorganizing Clustered Columnstore Indexes
• Kendra Little – Did You Give SQL Server 2012 Standard Edition Enough Memory?
• Glenn Berry – Running SQL Server 2014 on an Azure Virtual Machine
• Mary Jo Foley – Microsoft says Storage service performance update brought Azure down
• Azure Premium Storage

Did you know that SQL was initially called “Sequel” (Structured English Query Language)?

On this show, we go back to basics and talk about our favorite language – Transact-SQL (T-SQL).

We cover a lot of topics in the fields of development, performance and maintenance. Among them:

• The logical phases of query processing
• Our favorite and least favorite T-SQL features
• T-SQL development best practices
• How to avoid writing long Stored Procedures
• How to avoid writing the “mother of all queries”
• The Axis of Evil T-SQL featrues
• Why you should (almost) never use table variables

Items mentioned in the show:

• Matan Yungman – The Axis of Evil
• Itzik Ben-Gan – Creative Uses of the APPLY Operator (Part1)
• Itzik Ben-Gan – Creative Uses of the APPLY Operator (Part2)

On previous shows, we talked about an interesting behavior of the Sort operator and missing nodes in execution plans. On this show, we finally have the explanation for those Phenomenons.

In addition, we talk about:

• What needs does Azure DocumentDB come to address
• Common mistakes with Parameterization in SQL Server
• Tracking Page Splits
• Tracking progress of index builds and rebuilds
• A new index maintenance script
• Dangerous backups
• And more..

Items mentioned in the show:

• Guy Glatnser – Parameterization Part 5: Two Common Mistakes
• Paul White – Nested Loops Prefetching
• Wikipedia – Merge Sort
• Matan Yungman – Tracking Progress of Index Builds and Rebuilds
• Guy Glantser – Monitoring Page Splits
• Midnight SQL – Minion Reindex
• Kendra LIttle – Why I Don’t Use SQL Server’s Activity Monitor
• Introduction to Azure DocumentDB
• Guy Glantser – Be Careful! Backups Can Bite You!

PASS Summit 2014 is over, and wh’re here for a recap of what happened, what was announced, what we learned in the sessions we attended, and some thoughts on the direction Microsoft is heading.

Among other topics, we talk about:

• The summit keynote and the Microsoft vision
• Parallelism
• The new Query Store feature
• The new Stretched Tables feature
• Improvements to Cluster Quorum
• Backup performance improvements
• Database corruption recovery techniques
• Interesting behavior of Sequence with Delayed Durability
• The various activities during the summit
• And more..

Items mentioned in the show:

• PASS Summit 2014 Day 1 Keynote
• PASS Summit 2014 Day 2 Keynote
• Adam Machanic – Manhandling Paralellism, 2014 Edition
• Paul Randal – Advanced Data Recovery Techniques
• Allan Hirt – Did You Vote Today? A DBA’s Guide to Cluster Quorum
• Guy Glantser – Working with Very Large Tables Like a Pro in SQL Server 2014

We’re currently at PASS Summit, and things are pretty busy here, so we didn’t manage to record a new show.

Instead, we republish an episode which features interviews with 3 of the top experts in the industry: Brent Ozar, Denny Cherry and Adam Machanic. They were recorded a year ago at SQLRally Amsterdam for our Hebrew version (of course the interviews were conducted in English).

The interviews cover a lot of topics. Among them are professional development, the future of DBA work, SQL Server 2014, storage, parallelism, virtualization and SQLCLR. If you missed it, it’s an opportunity to catch up.

After we return home, we have a lot of exciting stuff to talk about on the next shows.

Items mentioned in the show:

• Brent Ozar – Rock Stars, Normal People, and You
• Brent Ozar – Why Index Fragmentation Doesn’t Matter (Video)
• Denny Cherry’s Podcast – People Talking Tech
• Adam Machanic – Next-Level Parallel Plan Forcing: An Alternative to 8649
• Adam Machanic – Query Tuning Mastery: The Art and Science of Manhandling Paralellism
• Adam Machcnic – Data, Faster: Microsoft SQL Server Performance Techniques with SQLCLR
• T-SQL Tuesday

On this in-depth show, we take a deep dive into the two biggest features of SQL Server 2014: In-Memory OLTP (aka Hektaon) and Clustered Columnstore Indexes.

We talk about the data structures of the two features, how they differ from the traditional data structures, and why they allow such staggering performance boosts.

We also talk about things you need to take into account and watch out for when working with them, and about the types of workloads that can benefit from them.

Items mentioned in the show:

• What’s New in SQL Server 2014 Course
• SQL Down Under Show 62 with Paul Larson

It’s the monthly all-over-the-place version of the show, and this time we have a mix of various topics like the cloud, T-SQL development, performance, SQL Server 2014, events and presentation skills.

We also have some more mystery around the Non-Blocking Sort issue from earlier shows.

More specifically, we talk about:

• Is the cloud a threat or opportunity for DBAs?
• The ways to pass a list of values to a Stored Procedure
• The distribution of installations between SQL Server versions
• Non-Blocking Sort – Is there a hidden Iterator that helps it?
• Various presentations worth watching
• The new SQL Server 2014 Cardinality Estimator
• And more..

Items mentioned in the show:

• Guy Glantser – DBA in the Cloud: Threat or Opportunity?
• Adam Machanic – SQLCLR String Splitting Part 2: Even Faster, Even More Scalable
• Erland Sommarskog – Arrays and Lists in SQL Server
• 24 Hours of Pass Summit Preview Edition
• Julie Koesmarno – “I Want It NOW!” Data Visualization with Power View
• Kalen Delaney – In-Memory OLTP Internals: How is a 30x Performance Boost Possible?
• 24 Hours of Pass Portuguese Edition
• 24 Hours of Pass SQL Server 2014 Edition
• Sunil Agarwal – SQL Server 2014: In-Memory OLTP for Database Administrators
• Sunil Agarwal – Columnstore Technical Deep Dive
• Jimmy May – Columnstore Indexes in SQL Server 2014: Flipping the DW Faster Bit
• SQLSaturday Israel
• Aaron Bertrand – Tricks to play on your DBA
• Madeira Course – What’s New in SQL Server 2014?

On show 5, we have our first guest – Kevin Kline!

We talk with Kevin about various topics, covering professional development, the direction of Microsoft, SQL Server 2014, the role of the DBA, and more. Specifically, we cover:

• How well Microsoft is keeping up with the competition
• What Kevin thinks about SQL Server 2014 and where Microsoft going in the database market
• How to take the leap from being a good DBA to being a manager
• Why it’s important to have a mentor
• His history at PASS, how he and the other founders envisioned it when they founded it, and what he wants to see PASS doing today
• How the DBA role is going to change in the next few years
• DBAs and Chauffeurs
• Kevin’s biggest mistake
• And more..

Kevin is a renowned database expert and software industry veteran, a long-time Microsoft SQL Server MVP and noted leader in the IT industry. Kevin is a founder and former president of PASS and the author of popular IT books like SQL in a Nutshell. Kevin is also a top-rated speaker at industry trade shows worldwide.

• Kevin Kline’s Blog
• Kevin Kline – Top 10 DBA Mistakes on SQL Server
• Kevin and the Ice Bucket Challenge

Two weeks have passed, and it’s time for our 4th show.

As always, we have a mix of interesting stuff covering performance, data architecture, new services, tips, tricks, and much more. Among other topics, we talk about:

• Why pulling from a Linked Server is A LOT faster than pushing
• The effect of new hardware on Writelog waits
• Ways to improve the throughput of your data loading processes
• The architecture of Transaction Replication
• A weird bug with sequence
• DocumentDB, Microsoft’s new NoSQL database service
• String search solutions in SQL Server
• Why you should wear the Database Architect hat from time to time
• How Paul Simon is related to SQL Server

Items mentioned in the show:

• Guy Glantser – Parameterization Series
• Linchi Shea – Linked servers and performance impact: Direction matters!
• Maria Zakourdaev – Choosing SEQUENCE instead of IDENTITY? Watch your step
• SQLBits Session Recordings
• Klaus Aschenbrenner – Latches, Spinlocks, and Lock Free Data Structures
• 24 Hours of Pass
• Denny Cherry – PASS Summit 2014 Speaker Idol Competition
• SQL Server Days
• Microsoft NoSQL database and full-text search service previews available on Azure
• Bob Beauchemin – New Azure services and evolution of the Service/SQL Server relationship
• Stuart Ainsworth – From DBA to Data Architect: Changing Your Game (zip file for download)

You know you have a performance problem in your server, but where do you start looking in order to find what that problem is?

On our 3rd show, we take a deep dive into performance tuning and talk about:

• The Top-Down and Bottom-Up methods and when to use which
• The various tools SQL Server gives us for performance tuning
• How to pinpoint the problem in any of the methods
• What to look for when tuning a slow running query or process
• What to look for when analyzing execution plans
• Why you should always blame the network 
• And more..

What’s your method for performance tuning? What are the tools that you use? Tell us in the comments..

On our 2nd show, we start by talking about our trips. Matan shares about how great SQLBits was (including the custome party), and Guy talks about WPC (Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference). He explains what WPC is, about the Microsoft vision and its effects on the DBA’s work.

We then talk about interesting blog posts, forum discussions, news and incidant we encountered in the last month:

• The less known but deadly drawback of User Defined Functions
• The real meaning of Blocking Iterators
• The real meaning of PAGEIOLATCH waits
• Perofrmance monitoring and baselines
• Automatic code
• And more..

Items mentioned in the show:

• Adam Machanic – Query Tuning Mastery: The Art and Science of Manhandling Paralellism
• Paul Randal – Knee-Jerk Wait Statistics : PAGEIOLATCH_SH
• Eitan Blumin – Let SQL Server Write Code for You
• Avi Niv – Generating Email Reports using XML
• Kendal Van Dyke – Troubleshooting Transactional Replication
• Microsoft’s unified technology event for enterprises
• Adam Machanic – PASS Summit 2014 and the Contradiction of Long Running Things

We’ve been broadcasting for about a year in Hebrew. We love it a lot, and after we got some great feedback and encouragement, we decided to do it in English too.

On the first show, we talk about Pass and the various activities it facilitates like Pass Summit, SQLSaturday, Local Chapters and Virtual Chapters.

Later on, we talk about our favorite features from SQL Server 2014.

Items mentioned in the show:

• Pass
• SQLSaturday
• Pass Professional Development Virtual Chapter
• Guy Glantser – The Pass Spirit
• Guy Glantser – How to Use Parameters Like a Pro and Boost Performance

How to Listen:

You can listen to the show using any podcast app on your Smartphone, whether you use iPhone, Android or Windows Phone. Just search for “SQL Server Radio” in the app (don’t get confused with the Hebrew edition). If the app can’t find it, you can add the feed manually using the following URL: http://www.sqlserverradio.com/feed/podcast/

A few recommended podcast apps are the built-in iPhone and Windows Phone apps, BeyondPod (for Android only) and Stitcher.

You can also listen to the show on this website, or download the file and hear it on your car stereo, MP3 player or mobile phone.