This week, Brent, Erik, Tara, and Richie discuss whether you need to premake a destination database in order to run sp_databaserestore, restoring production statistics on dev servers to simulate productions behavior, dealing with duplicate SPNs, tools for detecting all SQL Servers in a production environment, SQL performance monitoring, dealing with very large indexes, and Brent's recent cruise.

Office Hours - 1/2/2019

This week, Erik, Tara, and Richie discuss disaster recovery, Python vs C# for SQL Server, whether you should perform log backups on primary or secondary on AGs, why Postgres is so popular, using mount points for tempdb, attention events, database corruption, MERGE statements, restoring a table from a database, features they look forward to in SQL Server 2019, and how Santa is able to visit all those homes in one night...

Office Hours - 12/19/2018

This week, Erik and Richie discuss TSQL classes, scalar functions, index reorganize vs rebuild, daily image backups on a fringe SQL server on VMWare, number of databases per AG, best practices for ETL operations, and more!

Office Hours - 12/12/2018

This week, Tara and Richie discuss deletes on heaps, Docker, using containers in production environment, advice for new DBA, downgrading server hardware, agent jobs, setting SQL Memory Min and Max to the same value, how to prove CPU pressure to management using the Power BI report using blitz prox, corruption, patching, backups, sargability, and more.

Office Hours - 12/5/2018

This week, Brent, Tara, and Richie discuss storing phone numbers in a database, forced parameterization, how AI will affect DBA jobs in the future, what languages a DBA needs to learn, backup issues, measuring the overhead of transparent data encryption in terms of CPU on SQL Server, starting SQL server without tempdb, and much more!

Office Hours - 11/28/2018

This week, Brent, Tara, and Erik discuss update statistics, how soon it is safe to use a new version of SQL Server, VMs vs physical servers, backups, disabling TCP Chimney Offset in VMware, SQL Server on Linux, performance troubleshooting, most valuable tools to have in your SQL Server DBA toolkit, nolock and read uncommitted, and more.

Office Hours - 11/21/2018

This week, Tara, Erik, and Richie discuss using Docker in dev environment, in-place upgrades, disaster recovery, the minimum amount of CPU and RAM for new SQL Server VMs, troubleshooting long-running SQL agent jobs, dbcc checkdb running longer than normal, and more.

Office Hours - 11/14/2018

This week, Tara and Richie discuss offline file database and log backup solutions, VSS database backups, monitoring products, parameterization, page latch waits, SQL ConstantCare™, and Availability Groups on 2017 Standard Edition.

Office Hours - 11/7/2018

This week, Brent, Tara, Erik, and Richie discuss load balancing, preventing auto-updates, compatibility modes, capturing deadlock chains without tracing or extended events, blocking, which user should own databases, asynchronous processing, compressing databases, reindexing on Always On AGs, and "Making a Murderer" spoilers (not really).

Office Hours - 10/31/2018

This week, Brent, Tara, and Richie discuss increasing a table's varchar field from 1 to 2, predicting how long CHECKDB should take, SQL Server configuration options, reporting, reducing high waits, analysis services for SQL Azure, advice to first time PASS attendees, compatibility levels, cardinality estimator, PowerShell, and Tara's hairdo.

Office Hours - 10/24/2018

This week, Brent, Erik, and Richie discuss small vendor apps, "Slow in the Application, Fast in SSMS?", virtualization, licensing, msdb backup history issues, implicit transactions, how to convince your boss to allow you to use sp_blitz, and more!

Office Hours - 10/17/2018

This week, Brent, Tara, and Richie discuss splitting large database files across multiple files, security auditing solutions, what Brent is currently teaching at the client location, SQL Server in containers, heap index maintenance, contained databases, extended events, the difference between a junior and Senior DBA, page file sizing, and more.

Office Hours - 10/10/2018

This week, Tara and Richie discuss database corruption, CLR, DBCC issues, adding identity columns to databases, distributed transactions, tracking how recently a procedure was executed, maintenance plans, recompiling stored procs, parameter sniffing issues, troubleshooting replication with Always On, forecasting database growth and estimating capacity issues, tools for database growth forecast reports, RCSI, and much more.

Office Hours - 10/03/2018

This week, Brent, Tara, Erik, and Richie discuss moving views between databases, Cluster Quorum File Share on AlwaysOn, checking for corruption, rebooting/restarting SQL server after applying cumulative updates, how many drive letter to use for a VM, decimal precision and scale value settings on SQL Server 2016 vs 2008, nested views, and Tara's recent booze cruise.

Office Hours - 9/19/2018

This week, Brent, Erik, Tara, and Richie discuss syncing logins and database data via log shipping, monitoring page life expectancy, cumulative update issues, when to change MAXDOP, doing SQL Server install on AWS, connecting to SQL Server instance on a virtual box from the desktop where the virtual box is running, and what real DBAs drink.

Office Hours - 9/12/2018

This week, Brent, Tara, Erik, and Richie discuss whether you should keep autoshrink on, AG multisite failovers, next version of SQL Server, SQL Server 2017 Vulnerability Assessment, SELECT INTO vs INSERT INTO, using Node.js with SQL Server, Using PowerShell for DBA tasks, the future of SQL Server for Linux, memory gateway query compile, VB.NET, patching, and more!

Office Hours - 9/5/2018

This week, Brent, Erik, and Richie discuss Microsoft cumulative updates, AlwaysOn Encrypted, query tuning, poison waits, the DBA career, CXPACKET waits, THREADPOOL issues, reporting services, and more.

Office Hours - 8/29/2018

This week, Brent, Tara, Erik, and Richie discuss error log issues, issues with moving a 2-node AG to a different VM, adding a rowversion column gotchas, using indexes, Docker & CI/CD, RESOURCE_SEMAPHORE query compile, table locks, Query Store, and best places to eat in NYC.

Office Hours - 8/15/2018

This week, Brent, Tara, Erik, and Richie discuss troubleshooting port blocking, page life expectancy issues, problems with turning off CPU schedulers, coordinating two jobs across servers, adding additional log files to an almost-full partition, tips for getting a new SQL Server DBA job, using alias names for SQL Servers, database going into suspect mode during disaster recovery, SQL Constant Care "Too Much Memory" warning, index operational statistics, running newer versions of SQL Server with databases in older version compat mode, and more!

Office Hours - 8/8/2018

This week, Erik and Richie discuss monitoring tools, finding all unused tables across databases, query tuning, deleting vs hanging on to indexes, sharding databases, query editors, aggressively-locked indexes, why a plan would not be in the plan cache, and Richie's current housing situation.

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