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 …
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 …
The Curious Case of… occasional query failure on a tiny table
This is a case that happened on a client system last year: occasionally a common query on a tiny table appeared to ‘hang’ and had to be killed and re-run. What’s going on? The table in question only had a few million rows of data in it, with a maximum …
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 …
New course and bundle: SQL Server 2025 Vector Search in Practice
(TL;DR; Video trailer for the new course is here.) Joe’s next course, AIVSP: Vector Search in Practice, is now available! This online course builds on AIVSE: Vector Search Essentials to cover production patterns for vector search in SQL Server 2025 and …
[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 …