Sql Server Radio

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 for monitoring, baselining, data collection, reporting and alerting What should you do when you get an alert about a certain problem And more.. Items mentioned in the show: Conor Cunningham – Managing 1 Million+ DBs-How Big Data is used to run SQL Azure Maria Zakourdaev – Alert Visualization Recipe Happy 2015, everybody!

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 APPLY A disturbing bug with the SYSDATETIME function Clustered Columnstore Indexes, and how Rebuild and Reorganize work on them Azure Storage SQLRally and SQLBits conferences And more.. Items mentioned in the show: Guy Glantser – SQL Server Developer Tips that Can Save Your XXX Matan Yungman – Rebuilding and Reorganizing Clustered Columnstore Indexes Kendra Little – Did You Give SQL Server 2012 Standard Edition Enough Memory? Glenn Berry – Running SQL Server 2014 on an Azure Virtual Machine Mary Jo Foley – Microsoft says Storage service performance update brought Azure down Azure Premium Storage

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 practices How to avoid writing long Stored Procedures How to avoid writing the “mother of all queries” The Axis of Evil T-SQL featrues Why you should (almost) never use table variables Items mentioned in the show: Matan Yungman – The Axis of Evil Itzik Ben-Gan – Creative Uses of the APPLY Operator (Part1) Itzik Ben-Gan – Creative Uses of the APPLY Operator (Part2)

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 maintenance script Dangerous backups And more.. Items mentioned in the show: Guy Glatnser – Parameterization Part 5: Two Common Mistakes Paul White – Nested Loops Prefetching Wikipedia – Merge Sort Matan Yungman – Tracking Progress of Index Builds and Rebuilds Guy Glantser – Monitoring Page Splits Midnight SQL – Minion Reindex Kendra LIttle – Why I Don’t Use SQL Server’s Activity Monitor Introduction to Azure DocumentDB Guy Glantser – Be Careful! Backups Can Bite You!

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 improvements Database corruption recovery techniques Interesting behavior of Sequence with Delayed Durability The various activities during the summit And more.. Items mentioned in the show: PASS Summit 2014 Day 1 Keynote PASS Summit 2014 Day 2 Keynote Adam Machanic – Manhandling Paralellism, 2014 Edition Paul Randal – Advanced Data Recovery Techniques Allan Hirt – Did You Vote Today? A DBA’s Guide to Cluster Quorum Guy Glantser – Working with Very Large Tables Like a Pro in SQL Server 2014

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 interviews cover a lot of topics. Among them are professional development, the future of DBA work, SQL Server 2014, storage, parallelism, virtualization and SQLCLR. If you missed it, it’s an opportunity to catch up. After we return home, we have a lot of exciting stuff to talk about on the next shows. Items mentioned in the show: Brent Ozar – Rock Stars, Normal People, and You Brent Ozar – Why Index Fragmentation Doesn’t Matter (Video) Denny Cherry’s Podcast – People Talking Tech Adam Machanic – Next-Level Parallel Plan Forcing: An Alternative to 8649 Adam Machanic – Query Tuning Mastery: The Art and Science of Manhandling Parale

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 working with them, and about the types of workloads that can benefit from them. Items mentioned in the show: What’s New in SQL Server 2014 Course SQL Down Under Show 62 with Paul Larson

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 to a Stored Procedure The distribution of installations between SQL Server versions Non-Blocking Sort – Is there a hidden Iterator that helps it? Various presentations worth watching The new SQL Server 2014 Cardinality Estimator And more..   Items mentioned in the show: Guy Glantser – DBA in the Cloud: Threat or Opportunity? Adam Machanic – SQLCLR String Splitting Part 2: Even Faster, Even More Scalable Erland Sommarskog – Arrays and Lists in SQL Server 24 Hours of Pass Summit Preview Edition Julie Koesmarno – “I Want It NOW!” Data Visualization with Power View Kalen Delaney – In-Memory OLTP Internals: How is a 3

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 being a good DBA to being a manager Why it’s important to have a mentor His history at PASS, how he and the other founders envisioned it when they founded it, and what he wants to see PASS doing today How the DBA role is going to change in the next few years DBAs and Chauffeurs Kevin’s biggest mistake And more.. About Kevin: Kevin is a renowned database expert and software industry veteran, a long-time Microsoft SQL Server MVP and noted leader in the IT industry. Kevin is a founder and former president of PASS and the author of popular IT books like SQL in a Nutshell. Kevin is also a top-rated speaker at industry trade

Two weeks have passed, and it’s time for our 4th show. As always, we have a mix of interesting stuff covering performance, data architecture, new services, tips, tricks, and much more. Among other topics, we talk about: Why pulling from a Linked Server is A LOT faster than pushing The effect of new hardware on Writelog waits Ways to improve the throughput of your data loading processes The architecture of Transaction Replication A weird bug with sequence DocumentDB, Microsoft’s new NoSQL database service String search solutions in SQL Server Why you should wear the Database Architect hat from time to time How Paul Simon is related to SQL Server Items mentioned in the show: Guy Glantser – Parameterization Series Linchi Shea – Linked servers and performance impact: Direction matters! Maria Zakourdaev – Choosing SEQUENCE instead of IDENTITY? Watch your step SQLBits Session Recordings Klaus Aschenbrenner – Latches, Spinlocks, and Lock Free Data Structures 24 Hours of Pass Denny Cherry – PASS Summit 2014 Speake

You know you have a performance problem in your server, but where do you start looking in order to find what that problem is? On our 3rd show, we take a deep dive into performance tuning and talk about: The Top-Down and Bottom-Up methods and when to use which The various tools SQL Server gives us for performance tuning How to pinpoint the problem in any of the methods What to look for when tuning a slow running query or process What to look for when analyzing execution plans Why you should always blame the network  And more.. What’s your method for performance tuning? What are the tools that you use? Tell us in the comments..

On our 2nd show, we start by talking about our trips. Matan shares about how great SQLBits was (including the custome party), and Guy talks about WPC (Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference). He explains what WPC is, about the Microsoft vision and its effects on the DBA’s work. We then talk about interesting blog posts, forum discussions, news and incidant we encountered in the last month: The less known but deadly drawback of User Defined Functions The real meaning of Blocking Iterators The real meaning of PAGEIOLATCH waits Perofrmance monitoring and baselines Automatic code And more.. Items mentioned in the show: Adam Machanic – Query Tuning Mastery: The Art and Science of Manhandling Paralellism Paul Randal – Knee-Jerk Wait Statistics : PAGEIOLATCH_SH Eitan Blumin – Let SQL Server Write Code for You Avi Niv – Generating Email Reports using XML Kendal Van Dyke – Troubleshooting Transactional Replication Microsoft’s unified technology event for enterprises Adam Machanic – PASS Summit 2014 and the Contradi

We’ve been broadcasting for about a year in Hebrew. We love it a lot, and after we got some great feedback and encouragement, we decided to do it in English too. On the first show, we talk about Pass and the various activities it facilitates like Pass Summit, SQLSaturday, Local Chapters and Virtual Chapters. Later on, we talk about our favorite features from SQL Server 2014. Items mentioned in the show: Pass SQLSaturday Pass Professional Development Virtual Chapter Guy Glantser – The Pass Spirit Guy Glantser – How to Use Parameters Like a Pro and Boost Performance How to Listen: You can listen to the show using any podcast app on your Smartphone, whether you use iPhone, Android or Windows Phone. Just search for “SQL Server Radio” in the app (don’t get confused with the Hebrew edition). If the app can’t find it, you can add the feed manually using the following URL: http://www.sqlserverradio.com/feed/podcast/ A few recommended podcast apps are the built-in iPhone and Windows Phone apps, BeyondPod (for Androi