The secret life of database keys
There’s not much to database keys, right? When you build a new table, you add a column to act as the primary key, then set it to auto-generate. Done. That’s all there is to know…right? The goal of this article is to demonstrate that there’s much more t …
March Madness: $699 Blackbelt Bundle!
Spring is already in the air here in Redmond so time for March Madness! Hundreds of dollars lower-than-ever prices on our signature 158-hour Blackbelt training bundle: US$699 for one-year access (or to upgrade) – $200 lower than ever before! – US$1,299 …
The Tech Consulting Market Isn’t Looking Good.
After hearing the same dire news from several of my consulting friends, I put a poll up on LinkedIn: About half of the consultants out there are having a tougher time bringing in new clients than they have in the past. There are a couple things to keep …
[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 …
The Curious Case of… finding long IAM chains
In the previous Curious Case I described an issue Jonathan had at a client with very long IAM chains, and the circumstances leading to it. The question was how to prove that some allocation units had IAM chain lengths way out of proportion to the amoun …
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 …
SQL101: Introduction to SQL Server Transactions
(The original version of this post first appeared on the now-deleted SentryOne blog at the start of 2022.) One of the most fundamental concepts in any relational database management system (RDBMS), such as SQL Server, is the transaction. During my cons …
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 …
The SQL Server Transaction Log, Part 2: Log Architecture
(This post first appeared on SQLperformance.com four years ago as part of a blog series, before that website was mothballed later in 2022 and the series was curtailed. Reposted here with permission, with a few tweaks.) In the first part of this series …
[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 …
Achievement Unlocked: One Year Sober
(This is from the Insider Newsletter that I sent out earlier today…) Back in early 2023 I wrote a long blog post about my struggles with alcohol and how I’d decided to stop. I made it a few months, and then several times on and off after that, in the c …