SQL Server Radio

Guy tries to convince Eitan that OPTION(RECOMPILE) is the ultimate "Turbo" button in SQL Server, and that it's strongly underappreciated.

Relevant links for more info:

• OPTION(RECOMPILE) (Transact-SQL) - SQL Server | Microsoft Learn
• Recompile a Stored Procedure - SQL Server | Microsoft Learn
• Should I use option(recompile)? – SQLServerCentral
• SQL SERVER - Parameter Sniffing and OPTION (RECOMPILE) - SQL Authority with Pinal Dave

Guy and Eitan discuss various practices in SQL Server that hurt performance and possibly waste money, negative VarDecimal numbers, renumbering Identity columns, and the new Azure Database Fleet Manager.

Relevant links:

• SQL Server IN Clause With Multiple Literal Values Performance Behaviour | Neeraj Prasad Sharma
• Could SQL Injection be dangerous even when perfectly safe? | Eitan Blumin
• The Anatomy of Vardecimals | Mark S. Rasmussen
• Utility Scripts/ReNumber_Identity_Column.sql
• Introducing Azure Database Fleet Manager

Also, Happy New Year! 🎉🎈🥂

Guy and Eitan talk about some great things about SQL Server, and mostly Guy’s experience in digging into execution plans and generating synthetic IO workloads.

Relevant links:

• What’s new in SQL Server and Azure SQL 2023 Year in Review

• Multi-Tenancy in the Real World | Eitan Blumin (Data Weekender 6.5)

SQL Server Radio is going on a short break this month.

Please tune in next month for when we'll be coming back!

In the meantime, check out some of our favorite past episodes:

• Episode 108 - "I Really Want to Do It" Flags
• Episode 115 - How can UPDATE STATISTICS cause HADR disconnections?
• Episode 122 - What you didn't know that you wanted to know about XML
• Episode 125 - Monitoring SQL Servers for a managed DBA service
• Episode 144 - Getting Locked Outside Without Your Keys

Guy and Eitan go back to their SQL Server roots and go hardcore into execution plan analysis and database corruption.

Relevant links:

• Health Check Scripts/Find_Top_Exec_Plans_to_Optimize.sql

• SQLServerFast.com

• Database Corruption Challenge by Steve Steadman

• A DBA's Guide to the Proper Handling of Corruption

• Data TLV Summit

• PASS Data Community Summit

Guy and Eitan celebrate resuming the school year with some learning of their own. This time, focusing on encryption types in SQL Server.

Relevant links:

• External REST Endpoint Invocation is now GA!

• Types of Encryption in SQL Server

• PWDENCRYPT and PWDCOMPARE

• Dynamic Data Masking

And also, don’t forget to register for the upcoming Data TLV Summit!

Today we have Kevin Chant as our guest!

We talk about Kevin’s favorite topics: Microsoft Fabric, Azure DevOps, SQL Server, and more.

Relevant links:

• https://www.kevinrchant.com/2023/06/13/create-your-own-microsoft-fabric-environment/

Guy and Eitan discuss several interesting topics and recent experiences that you'd want to hear about!

Relevant links:

• Trigram Wildcard String Search in SQL Server
• The Story of DBeaver, PostgreSQL, and the silly data engineer
• SQL Server Error Log Management
• High VLF Counts Got You Down? Here's How to Keep Them Low and Performance High

As promised in the previous episode, Guy and Eitan interview an actual human this time!

The one and only, the famed Erik Darling is our guest for today!

Check out his official website:

• Erik Darling Data
• Erik Darling's YouTube Channel

We apologize in advance for Guy's occasional audio glitches, as he was having network issues on the day of recording.

Guy and Eitan try something new for today's show - we interview ChatGPT as our guest for today, and make it pretend that it's a SQL Server expert!

Let's see how it does.

Relevant links:

• Monitor performance by using the Query Store
• Brent Ozar Unlimited
• SQLSkills
• Scary DBA
• SQL Authority
• PASS Data Community Summit
• SQLBits
• GroupBy Virtual Conference
• Data Platform Summit

Guy and Eitan share their experience from SQLBits 2023 and some of their favorite sessions.

Relevant links:

• Official SQLBits Website
• SQLBits Content Library
• SQLBits YouTube Channel
• SQL Server Debugging with WinDbg – an Introduction
• Join #TeamHugo and Help Fight Leukemia
• Parameter Sensitive Plan optimization
• Azure Functions overview
• GitHub CoPilot

Guy and Eitan discuss some new and existing capabilities in the SQL Server engine related to Intelligent Query Processing, and whether our job positions as DBAs are at risk due to the imminent takeover by our robot overlords.

Relevant links:

• Intelligent Query Processing
• Adaptive Joins (Batch)
• Intelligent Query Processing Feedback family of features
• Parameter Sensitive Plan Optimization
• Scalar UDF Inlining

Guy and Eitan list several common mistakes done by DBAs in SQL Server.

Some relevant links:

• Architecting Database Dev and Test Environments: Best Practices and Anti-Patterns for SQL Server
• Ola Hallengren's Maintenance Solution
• HADR My Jobs - Open Source Solution by Madeira
• Columnstore Indexes: Planning and Implementation
• TSQL Script to Check for Weak Passwords
• Script to Check for Max DOP Configuration Best Practice

Today we have the pleasure of hosting Rob Sewell, and talking about the upcoming SQLBits event of 2023!

Relevant links:

• SQLBits 2023 agenda, speakers, pricing, and registration - events.sqlbits.com/2023
• YouTube playlist of all 195 sessions from SQLBits 2022 - available for free!
• SQLBits helpers form - beard.media/sqlbits-helpers
• Rob Sewell's blog - blog.robsewell.com

Guy and Eitan finally celebrate the generally available release of SQL Server 2022! And also discuss other announcements from PASS Data Community Summit, and also various interesting news and features of Azure SQL announced in November 2022.

Relevant links:

• SQL Server 2022 is now generally available
• Consumption-based PAYG billing model for SQL Server 2022 on-prem
• PASS Data Community Summit
• Hug a DBA song by Killa DBA
• SQL Server 2022 song by Killa DBA
• The SQL Server Native Client has been removed from SQL Server 2022 (16.x) and SQL Server Management Studio 19 (SSMS). Switch to the new Microsoft OLE DB Driver (MSOLEDBSQL) for SQL Server or the latest Microsoft ODBC Driver for SQL Server going forward.
• Mid-November 2022 Public Preview updates to Azure SQL
  • Azure SQL database external REST endpoints integration in public preview
• Mid-November 2022 General Availability updates to Azure SQL
• Public Preview Azure SQL Managed Instance feature wave for November 2022
• General Availability Azure SQL Managed Instance feature wave for November 2022
• Learn more about the November 2022 Feature Wave for Azure SQL Managed Instance
• Azure SQL - General availability updates for late November 2022
• Azure SQL - Public preview updates for late November 2022
• DR Secondary licensing is free with Azure VM and SQL Managed Instance in PAYG model

Guy and Eitan play a game of word associations to spout a bunch of stuff about SQL Server features - mostly reviewing new system objects that replaced old DBCC commands, useful scripts in our toolbox, and talking about Application Reliability Errors.

Relevant links:

• Buffer Pool Extension
• SQL Server editions comparison dashboard by domains, features, and scale capacities – by Romain Ferraton
• SQL Server Standard vs Enteprise Edition features history – by Romain Ferraton
• SQL Server Scale Limits by Version and Edition - by Eitan Blumin
• sys.dm_os_buffer_descriptors
• Madeira Toolbox: Buffer Pool Distribution by Tables.sql
• Get the last known actual execution plan using sys.dm_exec_query_plan_stats
• sys.dm_db_page_info
• sys.dm_db_log_info
• sys.dm_db_stats_properties
• sys.dm_db_stats_histogram
• Madeira Toolbox: Shrink All Shrinkable Transaction Logs.sql
• Madeira Toolbox: Shrink_Transaction_Log_File.sql
• Madeira Toolbox: Application_Reliability_Monitor_SQLServer.sql
• Madeira Toolbox: Application_Reliability_Monitor_AzureSQLDB.sql
• PASS Data Community Summit 2022 - Register now!

Today we're pleased to have the one and only Itzik Ben-Gan hosted at our show again!

We talk about interesting SQL/T-SQL related topics, the experience of teaching, his new upcoming book edition of T-SQL Fundamentals, and more.

Relevant links:

• Itzik's personal web page at tsql.lucient.com
• Itzik Ben-Gan's Blog posts at SQLPerformance.com
• SQL Server Central - Question of the Day
• Even more fun with DATETIME arithmetics (Eitan Blumin)
• The Itzik Ben-Gan Trick (batch processing hack)

Guy and Eitan discuss a few new features in SQL Server 2022, and Guy tells a story about an interesting use case where a customer accidentally dropped their encryption keys in production.

Relevant links:

• SQL Server 2022 RC0 is now available!
• Azure Active Directory authentication for SQL Server 2022
  • Tutorial: Set up Azure Active Directory authentication for SQL Server
• Bidirectional Transactional Replication in SQL Managed Instance
• Considerations on Bidirectional Transactional Replication
• Azure Data Studio August release with SQL Server 2022 support
• Create identical symmetric keys on two servers - Microsoft Docs
• BACKUP SYMMETRIC KEY (Transact-SQL) - New SQL Server 2022 Syntax
• Troubleshooting Long-Running Shrink Operations - Eitan Blumin
• Shrink_Database_File_in_Specified_Increments.sql - Madeira Toolbox
• Too Many Plans for the Same Query Hash - Eitan Blumin

Today, Guy has a lot of tips to share after reviewing one of those... "problematic" customer environments. Let's just say that he's got his hands full. But it's still fun, and you get to learn as well!

Relevant links:

• Forced Parameterization | Microsoft Docs
• Forced Parameterization Can Lead to Poor Performance | Microsoft Tech Community
• Why Multiple Plans for One Query Are Bad | Brent Ozar
• Relevant scripts from our Madeira Toolbox:
  • Find Unused Indexes
  • Find Redundant Indexes
• Join, Query, and Table Hints (Transact-SQL) | Microsoft Docs
• Indexed Views | Microsoft Docs
• Second Normal Form

Guy and Eitan discuss their favorite upcoming new features in SQL Server 2022, and talk about some major upcoming events and summits.

Relevant links:

• SQL Server 2022 public preview is now available on Linux
• Introducing the SQL Server 2022 blog series by Bob Ward
• Contained Availability Groups in SQL Server 2022 | Eitan Blumin
• What is a contained availability group? | Microsoft Docs
• Erik Darling Blog series about Parameter Sensitive Plans
• XML Data Compression in SQL Server 2022
• Link feature in Azure SQL MI for SQL Server
• Welcome to the new Azure SQL Database local development experience
• Planning new scenarios and use cases for Azure SQL Database local development experience
• DOP Feedback In SQL Server 2022
• Upcoming community events:
  • Data Platform Virtual Summit (by Data Platform Geeks)
  • PASS Data Community Summit
• Madeira Toolbox Scripts:
  • Compare SQL Server instance properties
  • Change Tracking Generic Synchronization.sql