SQL Server Radio

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 y...

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 H...

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...

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 abou...

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 fo...

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 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...

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 an...

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 Clo...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 f...

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 AP...

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 practice...

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 main...

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 impro...

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 intervie...

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...

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...

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 bein...