Brent Ozar

this is less of a database, and more of a crime scene

How to diff files in SSMS v21: www.linkedin.com/posts/erinst...

This cries out for AI-based illustrations.

T-SQL Tuesday #189: How Is AI Changing Your Career? - SqlWorldWide I am honored and humbled to be hosting this month's T-SQL Tuesday - edition #189. T-SQL Tuesday is the brainchild of Adam Machanic (Blog |LinkedIn), , who sent out the first invitation in December…

This month's T-SQL Tuesday assignment is to discuss how AI is changing your career: sqlworldwide.com/t-sql-tuesda...

wait but why is the safety ladder risky

You ARE even older than me!

Overheard in the cruise ship: “so I’ve been timing my husband’s showers recently, and…”

[Video] Office Hours: 15 Answers in 30 Minutes The first few questions from this week's crop at are very much about what-problem-are-you-trying-to-solve, but they get more complex from there. Here's what we covered: 00:00 Start 02:49 My Erik is Strong: Do you suggest any steps after an upgrade to SQL Server 2022 in particular? I mean 2022 features to try, enjoy, or tweak. I'm not asking for generic migration advice.

[Video] Office Hours: 15 Answers in 30 Minutes

The first few questions from this week's crop at are very much about what-problem-are-you-trying-to-solve, but they get more complex from there. Here's what we covered: 00:00 Start 02:49 My Erik is Strong: Do you suggest any steps after an upgrade to…

Reading: you shouldn't be setting up linked servers with the ACE drivers, pointing at Access databases: seangallardy.com/psa-ace-driv...

Yeah, but the magic of an MCP server is that any app can talk to it. Build once, reuse in lots of clients, like monitoring tools, help desk platforms, ISV apps, etc. It’s the start of something much bigger than VScode.

How to connect AI assistant to SQL Server Everyone talks about AI, all your town halls are about AI, and you’re sitting here at your desk wondering, “What do I do about AI other than rephrasing the emails and teams chats?”

Reading: using Claude and MCP for SQL Server performance troubleshooting: gohigh.substack.com/p/how-to-con...

"Gee, I can't understand why people aren't more excited about our latest version of the app"

How to Make Leading Wildcard Searches Fast 99.9% of you are never gonna need this. But let's say you need to run queries with leading (not trailing) wildcards, like this search for all the different national versions of the Encabulator, each of which has different prefixes depending on which government it's being sold to: SELECT * FROM dbo.Parts WHERE PartNumber LIKE '%8359'; We'll simulate it with a last name search in…

How to Make Leading Wildcard Searches Fast

99.9% of you are never gonna need this. But let's say you need to run queries with leading (not trailing) wildcards, like this search for all the different national versions of the Encabulator, each of which has different prefixes depending on which…

Who’s Hiring in the Microsoft Database Community? August 2025 Edition Is your company hiring for a database position as of August 2025? Do you wanna work with the kinds of people who read this blog? Let's make a love connection. If your company is hiring, leave a comment. The rules: Your comment must include the job title, and either a link to the full job description, or the text of it.

Who’s Hiring in the Microsoft Database Community? August 2025 Edition

Is your company hiring for a database position as of August 2025? Do you wanna work with the kinds of people who read this blog? Let's make a love connection. If your company is hiring, leave a comment. The rules: Your comment…

My therapist(s)

Our small dog viciously hates anything and anyone more than ten feet away. Anything closer is a best friend for life. Super weird.

“these are the non-alcoholic drinks, and this section here are the ones for alcoholics”

Awww yeah! Congrats sir!

so it turns out these people have a private joke about fucking up the last word of every sentence, and now my respect is real and deep

OH: “he lives in a pineapple under the sink”

OKAY NOW YOU’RE JUST TROLLING ME

OMG, dude, I’m so sorry to hear that! Hugs.

OH: “gin and tonics taste that way because tonic is made with quinoa”

lord grant me the strength not to intervene

More Thoughts on Owning a Rolls-Royce I've been dailying my new-to-me 2017 Rolls-Royce Dawn for a couple months now, and I've noticed it really changed the way I feel about cars. People are overly friendly to me. They wave, take pictures, and constantly compliment both the car and me in a way that doesn't happen with any other car I've driven. The compliments have a common theme: "You look happy, and I'm happy for you." It's happened 

More Thoughts on Owning a Rolls-Royce

I've been dailying my new-to-me 2017 Rolls-Royce Dawn for a couple months now, and I've noticed it really changed the way I feel about cars. People are overly friendly to me. They wave, take pictures, and constantly compliment both the car and me in a way that…

[Video] Office Hours: Interview Horror Stories Edition Wanna hear about my worst job interviews? I drove up to 8,000 feet where it's 30 degrees colder than Las Vegas to bring you these answers to your top-voted questions from The audio's a little odd on here because it was really windy, and I had to use noise reduction in post-production. Here's what we covered: 00:00…

[Video] Office Hours: Interview Horror Stories Edition

Wanna hear about my worst job interviews? I drove up to 8,000 feet where it's 30 degrees colder than Las Vegas to bring you these answers to your top-voted questions from The audio's a little odd on here because it was really windy, and I had…

I’m literally going on a solo Alaska cruise next week. It’s like a reward. 🙌

Poll Results: Yes, Your DBAs Can Read the Data. Last week, I asked if your database administrators could read all of the data in all databases. The results (which may be different from this post, because I'm writing the post ahead of time and the poll is still open): Yes: 61% Yes, but we trust them not to: 29% Yes, if they bypass tech restrictions, but we trust them not to: 4%

Poll Results: Yes, Your DBAs Can Read the Data.

Last week, I asked if your database administrators could read all of the data in all databases. The results (which may be different from this post, because I'm writing the post ahead of time and the poll is still open): Yes: 61% Yes, but we trust…

The Query Tuning Trick You Should Use More: Pagination When I'm tuning queries, the normal answer is to make the query perform better - either via changing the T-SQL, adding hints, or adding indexes so that the data's better prepared for the query. However, sometimes when I'm looking at the output of sp_BlitzCache, I scroll across to the Average Rows column and double-check that the query's actually returning a reasonable number of rows out in the wild.

The Query Tuning Trick You Should Use More: Pagination

When I'm tuning queries, the normal answer is to make the query perform better - either via changing the T-SQL, adding hints, or adding indexes so that the data's better prepared for the query. However, sometimes when I'm looking at the output…

Microsoft SQL Server Licensing Simplified into 7 Rules - Brent Ozar Unlimited® Licensing is really complex, but as long as you know these seven rules, you can go a long way: If you query it, you have to license it. (Backups and corruption checks are not considered querying.)…

Classic post that comes up all the time in client engagements: Microsoft SQL Server Licensing Simplified Into 7 Rules

It’s not great, for sure. You get the third world vibe as soon as you step off the plane.

Actual current us, right now