[Video] Office Hours in the Vegas Home Office
Let’s hang out in my home office in Vegas and go through your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento. The audio’s a little echo-y in this one because I just moved my office down to a small first floor guest bedroom with hardwood floor …
Why disabling the SQL Server sa account still matters in 2026
Every few years, someone asks a familiar question: do we really still need to disable the sa account in SQL Server? After all, it’s 2026. SQL Server has better encryption, better auditing, better defaults, and more security features than ever before. S …
I Don’t Take Private Questions at Pre-Conference Classes.
When I first started teaching database sessions at conferences, I noticed a pattern. When I finished the session, closed PowerPoint, and thanked everyone for attending, a big queue of attendees would instantly start forming at the podium. People would …
10 Signs It Was Time to Hire Me
You’ve been reading my blog, watching my videos, and maybe even taking some of my training classes. You’ve heard me say things like “my clients” from time to time, and you’re wondering… why do companies actually hire me? What problem are they trying to …
Learning PostgreSQL with Grant: Data Storage
If you’re hosting your databases within a Virtual Machine (VM) or on some big iron, one of the principal bottlenecks you’re likely to see within your PostgreSQL clusters is I/O. With I/O at the center of potential performance problems, a good understan …
How to optimize planned availability group failovers in SQL Server
We often perform planned availability group failovers in SQL Server for maintenance, patching, upgrades, and even hardware rotation. Typically, our failovers are fast, but sometimes they take longer – and it’s not always intuitive why, as there are no …
[Video] Office Hours: Ask Me Anything About Microsoft SQL Server and Azure SQL DB
Want to ask your own questions or pick the ones I discuss? Head over to https://pollgab.com/room/brento to get involved. In the meantime, let’s hang out in the backyard, where Beni makes a special guest appearance. Here’s what we covered: 00:00 Start 0 …
How to safely use MySQL 8.0 post end-of-life (and alternatives to consider)
Regardless of how popular a specific software appliance is, particular versions of it are inevitably phased out over time, paving the way for new ones. MySQL, the DB-Engines DBMS of the Year in 2025, is perfect proof of this. MySQL 8.0 was officially r …
How to Help Copilot Encourage Good Database Standards
I know a lot of y’all lag behind on upgrading SSMS, but v22.3 just introduced something that you need to be aware of. It’s going to impact any of your users who DO upgrade their SSMS, or who use Github Copilot. There’s something that you can do in orde …
SQL Server Long-Running Query Detection: How to Find and Monitor Slow Queries
Monitoring and alerting can be overwhelming tasks, especially for those new to the world of managing production data. One common challenge for any data professional is the identification and management of queries that run for longer than they should. L …
How to Find and Monitor Slow/Long-Running Queries in SQL Server
Monitoring and alerting can be overwhelming tasks, especially for those new to the world of managing production data. One common challenge for any data professional is the identification and management of queries that run for longer than they should. L …
[Video] Office Hours at Atlantis, Bahamas
It’s an overcast afternoon at Atlantis Paradise Island in the Bahamas, so since I can’t go into the water, might as well go through your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento. Here’s what we covered: 00:00 Start 00:48 jrl: What makes …
Python is good, but not perfect – here are 10 reasons to avoid it
Four years ago I wrote a blog on this site explaining why Python is better than C# and, arguably, most other programming languages. To redress the balance, here are 10 reasons why you might want to avoid getting caught up in Python’s oh-so-tempting coi …
Updated First Responder Kit and Consultant Toolkit for February 2026
Two big sets of news this month! The Consultant Toolkit now supports imports to a database so you can track your clients’ health and performance over time, and sp_BlitzCache has a new @AI parameter. Set @AI = 1, and get a prompt you can copy/paste into …
SQL Server 2025 CREATE EXTERNAL MODEL and AI_GENERATE_EMBEDDINGS Commands Explained
When SQL Server 2025 was announced, Bob Ward mentioned that there would be some new commands for managing AI models and their definitions, as well as T-SQL functions to generate embeddings, etc. I even made a guess that the command might be CREATE AI M …