SQL Server Radio

Episode 185 - The Liar's Dividend

09 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Guy and Eitan talk about Erik Darling's new monitoring app, which reminds us of similar tools we had experience with long ago. And, again, it's time t...

Episode 184 - The Role of the DBA is Dead (Again)

09 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Looks like it's that time of the year again, to face the impending death of the DBA role! Or... Is it? Guy and Eitan discuss the topic and raise sever...

Episode 183 - Azure SQL Managed Instance Next Gen

12 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In this year's first episode of the new year, Guy and Eitan discuss the new Next-gen General Purpose tier of Azure SQL Managed Instance, which is now ...

Episode 182 - Matan Yungman's Show-and-Tell of Rapido

08 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Matan Yungman is our special host for today, who came especially to talk about his special project called "Rapido", which is capable of automatically ...

Episode 181 - The new SSMS is still blue

10 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Guy and Eitan talk about the new preview version of SSMS, application locks, and stupid troubles with TempDB shrinkage. Relevant links: Announcing th...

Episode 180 - Computed Columns with PERSISTED and Indexed Expressions

13 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We let a dice roll decide today's topic, and the winner ended up being: Computed Columns with PERSISTED and Indexed Expressions. We give our thoughts ...

Episode 179 - SQL Server 2025 RC0 announced and weird latch timeouts

08 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Guy and Eitan discuss several interesting announcements and updates from Microsoft related to SQL Server and VS Code. And also Eitan talks about a wei...

Episode 178 - AI is another thing to babysit

11 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Guy and Eitan discuss security-related best practice scripts, and several interesting AI topics. Relevant links: microsoft-dbas-club/Security and Co...

Episode 177 - Five and a Half Enhancements in SQL Server 2025

07 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Guy and Eitan discuss Stephen Planck's blog post "Five SQL Server 2025 Enhancements DBAs Will Notice", and add some of their own insights. Relevant li...

Episode 176 - SQL Server 2025 and more

09 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Many announcements and interesting releases came out this past month, so we got a lot to talk about in this episode! Relevant links: What's New in S...

Episode 175 - Migrating from on-prem to AWS RDS

12 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Guy talks about a recent migration project he was working on to move an on-prem SQL Server to AWS RDS. Eitan talks about a new AI-related feature in A...

Episode 174 - Is SQL Server quality in decline? Or is it just friction?

14 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Guy and Eitan worry about the decline in SQL Server feature quality. But maybe there's something else behind it? Relevant links: Improving Azure SQL...

Episode 173 - SQL Noir and the fate of Azure Data Studio

10 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Guy and Eitan discuss a few interesting topics. Including a fun new game called "SQL Noir", how to implement statistical clustering model in SQL, abou...

Episode 172 - Between SQL Squid Games and SSMS

10 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Guy and Eitan answer an interesting question from the forum regarding the logic of NOT BETWEEN. And also, checking out the SQL Squid Game, discussing ...

Episode 171 - Clueless about SQL Server 2025

13 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Guy and Eitan talk about SQL Server 2025 (well, they try to, at least), and its various interesting upcoming features. Relevant links: Announcing SQ...

Episode 170 - Interesting topics from PASS 2023 sessions

09 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Guy and Eitan go over the most popular sessions released from the SQL PASS archive of 2023, and discuss some other topics. Relevant links: Announcin...

Episode 169 - Resumable Incremental Database Integrity Checks

11 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Guy and Eitan discuss the common challenge of long-running database integrity checks (DBCC CHECKDB) and a solution to resolve it, and why do we need i...

Episode 168 - New data types in SQL Server and a question about index fragmentation

14 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Guy and Eitan discuss some interesting news from Microsoft regarding SQL Server, and also about the right way to handle index fragmentation. Relevant ...

Episode 167 - Let's Troubleshoot SQL AG Synchronization Latency

09 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Fair warning for all listeners! Before starting to listen to this podcast, very strongly recommended: Have the diagram at the bottom of this page read...

Episode 166 - DR Planning for SQL Server and Loading Large CSV Files

12 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Guy and Eitan discuss the recent CrowdStrike incident and what it would mean for DBAs, and discuss options to load huge CSV files into SQL Server as f...

Episode 165 - News in Azure SQL and Woes of Excel

08 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Guy and Eitan discuss some important and interesting news from Microsoft about SQL Server, Straight Path Solutions publish 30 articles about SQL Serve...

Episode 164 - The Good the Bad and the Ugly Transactional Replication

10 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Guy and Eitan continue discussing HADR solutions. But this time focusing on Transactional Replication, its cons and pros and potential use cases. Also...

Episode 163 - When and Why to HADR

13 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Guy and Eitan discuss the various High Availability and Disaster Recovery options available to us in Microsoft SQL Server, their main advantages, limi...

Episode 162 - Backups and Recovery, RTO, RPO, and RCO

08 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Guy and Eitan talk about some interesting news from Microsoft about SQL Server in Azure. And also discuss the topic of Backups and Recovery, RTO, RPO,...

Episode 161 - EXCLUSIVE: Announcing the Biggest Innovation for Azure SQL Managed Instances (Codename: Hermes)

21 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Niko Neugebauer and Vladimir Ivanovic are our esteemed guests for today, and they have a HUGE announcement to make about Azure SQL Managed Instances. ...

Episode 160 - OPTION RECOMPILE and the magical Turbo button

12 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

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

Episode 159 - Select * Wastes Money

08 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Guy and Eitan discuss various practices in SQL Server that hurt performance and possibly waste money, negative VarDecimal numbers, renumbering Identit...

Episode 158 - Reverse Engineering Table Relations based on SQL Plans

11 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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 w...

No episode this month

15 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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...

Episode 157 - Let's Talk Some Hardcore SQL Server

09 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Guy and Eitan go back to their SQL Server roots and go hardcore into execution plan analysis and database corruption. Relevant links: Health Check ...

Episode 156 - Back to School with Encryption as a Tool

11 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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

Episode 155 - Kevin Chant

14 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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: ...

Episode 154 - Beavers and very loud farts

10 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Guy and Eitan discuss several interesting topics and recent experiences that you'd want to hear about! Relevant links: Trigram Wildcard String Search...

Episode 153 - Erik Darling Is Our Guest For Today

12 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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 toda...

Episode 152 - We interview ChatGPT

08 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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...

Episode 151 - Tales from the SQL Bits of 2023

10 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Guy and Eitan share their experience from SQLBits 2023 and some of their favorite sessions. Relevant links: Official SQLBits Website SQLBits Content ...

Episode 150 - Artificially Intelligent Query Processing

13 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Guy and Eitan discuss some new and existing capabilities in the SQL Server engine related to Intelligent Query Processing, and whether our job positio...

Episode 149 - 8 Common DBA Mistakes in SQL Server

13 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Guy and Eitan list several common mistakes done by DBAs in SQL Server. Some relevant links: Architecting Database Dev and Test Environments: Best Pra...

Episode 148 - Rob Sewell and SQLBits 2023

09 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Today we have the pleasure of hosting Rob Sewell, and talking about the upcoming SQLBits event of 2023! Relevant links: SQLBits 2023 agenda, speakers...

Episode 147 - Congratulations! It's an RTM!

12 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Guy and Eitan finally celebrate the generally available release of SQL Server 2022! And also discuss other announcements from PASS Data Community Summ...

Episode 146 - New DMVs and Application Reliability

14 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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...

Episode 145 - Itzik Ben-Gan Strikes Back

10 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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 experienc...

Episode 144 - Getting Locked Outside Without Your Keys

12 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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...

Episode 143 - A mash-up of mistakes all in one place

29 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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...

Episode 142 - What is Your Favorite Feature in SQL Server 2022?

11 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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

Episode 141 - Howda Hadr Hader Hadader

13 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Guy and Eitan talk about a lot of exciting announcements and announcements about a lot of excitements! Does this even make sense? I don't know! Listen...

Episode 140 - Migration Challenges

09 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Guy and Eitan discuss interesting challenges and news about migrations in SQL Server. Also, we talk about performance considerations of partitioning i...

Episode 139 - What's New in 2022

11 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Guy and Eitan discuss upcoming events and conferences in 2022, and also about new features in SQL Server 2022, and more. Relevant links: Conferences:...

Episode 138 - EverSQL

14 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In today's show, Guy and Eitan host the co-founders of EverSQL, Oded Valin and Tomer Shay. We talk about their automated SQL tuning solution and SQL t...

Episode 137 - It's That Time of the Month

14 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

It's that time again! The time to talk about SQL Server! We got a bunch of different topics to talk about on this show. Relevant links: Cardinality E...

Episode 136 - On the First Day of Christmas I got a TSQL Script

10 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Guy and Eitan discuss some interesting announcements and focus on the topic of Security in SQL Server. Relevant links: Announcing new features for th...

Episode 135 - Announcing SQL Server 2022

13 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Guy and Eitan talk about the interesting new features announced in SQL Server 2022, a new sp_whoisactive version, and a bunch of Microsoft blog posts ...

Episode 134 - Availability Sets in Azure and SQL Server

08 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Guy and Eitan talk about some important news, about Availability Sets in Azure, and several useful T-SQL scripts in our Toolbox. Relevant links: Azur...

Episode 133 - Good news, everyone!

11 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Guy and Eitan talk about various topics related to SQL Server, including upcoming virtual events, interesting new scripts from our toolbox, and more! ...

Episode 132 - Blythe Morrow

13 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Are you a data professional who needs to be able to convince people that you're right? Blythe Morrow is here to help! Blythe Morrow is our special gue...

Episode 131 - The First Madeira Toolbox Round-Up

09 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Guy and Eitan discuss change automation tricks for databases, do a round-up of the newest scripts in the Madeira Toolbox, and more. Relevant links: D...

Episode 130 - We just talk about stuff

12 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Guy and Eitan shoot the breeze about several interesting topics that you wouldn't want to miss out on! Relevant links: SQL Server 2016 going out of m...

Episode 129 - 10 Comments Every DBA Wants to Say

07 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Today we go over a list written by Kevin Chant about a year ago, and add some of our own insights. Relevant links: Ten comments I think every SQL Ser...

Episode 128 - Azure and SQL with Anna and Bob

10 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

We have two very special guests in today's show: the AzureSQL rockstars Anna Hoffman and Bob Ward! Some relevant links: Azure SQL Fundamentals | Micr...

Episode 127 - The Red-Gate-took-over-and-now-we-get-free-stuff Summit

12 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Guy and Eitan discuss lots of interesting recent news, and also about various technical topics in SQL Server. Relevant links: News about PASS and SQ...

Episode 126 - Leading a Zeitgeist in the SQL Server Community

08 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Check out the episode where we start movements to change the way everyone writes T-SQL code, and/or deliver data platform meetups! And we also talk ab...

Episode 125 - Monitoring SQL Servers for a managed DBA service

08 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

We have a special topic for today, where we talk about our own managed DBA service, and how we ended up choosing SentryOne SQL Sentry as our go-to mon...

Episode 124 - The Vanguards of Data

11 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Guy and Eitan host a very special guest and speak about various SQL Server and Data Platform topics, and recent events. Relevant links: for more detai...

Episode 123 - Beware of the Parallel Plan

14 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Guy and Eitan take a break from talking about the PASS virtual summit, and celebrate with some interesting content. Relevant links: Notes on the PASS...

Episode 122 - What you didn't know that you wanted to know about XML

08 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Our guest for today is Yitzhak Khabinsky, a subject-matter expert on XML in SQL Server (among other impressive titles). We deep dive into the topic of...

Episode 121 - to PASS or not to PASS

05 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Guy and Eitan discuss PASS Virtual Summit 2020, what we should expect, whether it's worth the price tag or not, and discuss the future of the PASS org...

Episode 120 - Operator Level Statistics

07 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Guy and Eitan talk about recent and upcoming virtual events, and discuss the newly available runtime statistics at the operator-level in actual execut...

Episode 119 - Overriding Reporting Services Authentication

10 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Guy and Eitan talk about Virtual Summits and free online courses, how to override SSRS authentication, and learn how to pronounce Eitan's name. Also, ...

Episode 118 - Going reverse in a one way street

13 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Guy and Eitan talk about several workarounds that boil down to using a solution for something other than its intended purpose. Relevant links: Moving...

Episode 117 - May the Free Events be ever in your favor

08 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Today we talk about all the exciting free events that we were involved with during May, with even more to come, and also some other interesting news! ...

Episode 116 - FREEApril and a promising May

11 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Today's show notes are quite a handful! Red Gate report about the State of Database DevOps Eitan's session about Development Lifecycle Basics for DBA...

Episode 115 - How can UPDATE STATISTICS cause HADR disconnections?

13 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Eitan does his worst Donald Trump impression, and talks SQL Server stuff with Guy Glantser: Ola Hallengren's maintenance solution SQL Server Index Ma...

Episode 114 - Lots of catching up to do

09 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Guy Glantser is co-hosting with Eitan Blumin for the first time, and we have a lot of topics to cover and catching up to do. PASS and SQLBits Confere...

SQL Server Radio Important Announcement

17 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

After a very long break, today we come to you with a very special show, with a very special announcement to make. You do not want to miss this one!

Things You Shouldn't Do with SQL Server

07 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Guy is back from New Zealand. We talk a little bit about his trip, about things that people shouldn't be doing with SQL Server, and more.

What You Should Do Before You Actually Start Working

12 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Guy is in New Zealand, so Eitan Blumin comes to fill in. We talk about: CI/CD with SSDT What is a Canary Query The best performance tuning feature, R...

The Best Song of the 90s

05 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In this show: MySQL, Vertica, Azure Data Explorer and Matan 24 Hours of PASS: Summit Preview 2019 PASS Summit 2019: Session Schedule The Data Bias i...

Big Mistakes with Brent Ozar (Rebroadcast)

16 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

We had a technical issue with this month's recording, so instead we're going back to one of our favorite shows – Big Mistakes with Brent Ozar. Enjoy...

"I Really Want to Do It" Flags

20 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In this show: Multi-Tenant Architecture Optimizations Parallel Update Statistics What's the Difference between CONTEXT_INFO and SESSION_CONTEXT? N...

Azure Data Explorer

17 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Matan is really passionate about Azure Data Explorer. He presented a session about it in the last Data Platform Meetup in Israel. In this show, Matan ...

Just Show 107

01 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In this show: What a Great Event SQL Saturday Israel 2019 Was What is the Fastest-Growing Major Programming Language in the World? Exploring Azure St...

Guy is Back from SQLBits

03 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

SQL Pub Quiz The Keynote How to Make Sure Your SSIS Packages Will Never Fail by Guy Glantser Benchmarking in the Cloud by Gianluca Sartori Common Tr...

We don't Need MongoDB to Have Fun Tonight

25 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In this show, we talk about: SQLBits 2019 Guy is Bragging about Tel Aviv Marathon Microsoft Helps You Transform Your 2008 Server Applications with Az...

What Happened in Samoa on December 30, 2011?

24 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In this show, we talk about: What Happened in Samoa on December 30, 2011? Business Data Monitoring with Zabbix – Easily Done Matan Introduces Des...

Kubernetes for Breakfast

01 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

To SSDT or not to SSDT?

09 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In this show, we are happy to welcome a special guest - Dekel Asaf, R&D manager at OM2. We talked about many things, among them: Always On - or "Mo...

Do you Miss Asynchronous Triggers Tonight?

08 Nov 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In this show, we talk about: Advanced Service Broker Sample: Asynchronous Triggers Azure SQL Database Availability Zones Microsoft Learn Magic Johnso...

Show 100!

11 Oct 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Can you believe it? It's the 100th show!!! We have been doing it for 5 years, and we are having so much fun! We have been planning this show for a ver...

The 32-64-Bit Horror Show

30 Aug 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In this show we answered a listener's question about the 32-bit vs. 64-bit nightmare that developers have to go through when trying to access Excel ...

The Wonders of Multi-Tenant Databases

16 Aug 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In this show, we talk about: How to Fix Orphaned DB Users Easily SSMS Auto-Recovery Feature Multi-Tenant Database Challenges Your DR Plan isn't a Pla...

Availability Groups, Corruption, Implicit Transactions and More…

26 Jul 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Show Notes:  How to Set Up Availability Group with a Domain Account How to Start SQL Server Without Tempdb? Auto-Commit vs. Implicit Transactions Wh...

Anzeigen 96

12 Jul 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Show 96 is here. Among other stuff, we talked about:  SQLGrillen 2018 Simulating IGNORE NULLs Functionality on FIRST_VALUE and LAST_VALUE Functions ...

SQL Server Programming Best Practices Panel

21 Jun 2018

Contributed by Lukas

it's been very busy lately, and Guy is currently abroad, so we're posting something a little different. For the 100th show of the Hebrew edition, we c...

Database DevOps with Alex Yates

29 May 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Once a DBA, Always a DBA

15 May 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In this show, we talk about: Google Duplex Accessing External Resources from SQL Server SQL Saturday Israel 2018 24 Hours of PASS Optimizing Server-S...

Remembering Robert Davis

02 May 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Procrastinators and SQL Challenges

18 Apr 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Kenneth Fisher's Crossword Puzzle

04 Apr 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Today in the show, we solve (well, almost) a SQL Server crossword by Kenneth Fisher...

Nick the Optimizer

20 Mar 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Today in the show: The Best SQL Server Five-Words Tech Horror MongoDB Aggregation Feature in Azure Cosmos DB Data Discovery and Classification in SSM...

People Born in the 1900s are Old

18 Mar 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Today in the show: How to Schedule a Failover Use Inline Functions Instead of Scalar Functions Guy's Productivity Guide Maintenance Plans Security Ho...