Sql Server Radio

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 About Boris Boris is a SQL Server Consultant and Pluralsight Author fro

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. About David 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 virtual

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   About Niko 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

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.. About Tom: 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

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. About Sean: 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 Parale