This past Friday I received an email from a co-worker about the virtual event hosted by Brent Ozar, Buck Woody, Kevin Kline and Ari Weil. I have to admit I deleted the message because I get tons of emails during the day and did not have the time to look into it. Today I just came across a blog from Buck Woody about the same event and decided to check it out.

Wow! I have no regrets so far. I watched the first session “Blitz! SQL Server Takeovers” and it has tons of very good information. This session is 2.5 hours long so find a place where you can watch this thing comfortably. I really liked the relaxed and conversational way the speakers presented the material – lots of humor. Like always, questions from the audience (chat room), time of recording, lack of coffee or medication (ha!) carried some of the speakers (except Ari alias the water hose) away from the subjects currently discussed.

The meat for this session is the T-SQL code Brent uses when inheriting a new SQL server. The speakers provide a great deal of information in the video while discussing each chunk of code from the T-SQL script. The code has been available in SQLServerPedia.com since April this year but I recommend watching the video and not just getting the code; you will not regret it.  The script covers the following areas: Backups, CHECKDB, job failures, security, SQL server (advanced) options, startup stored procedures, general server configuration, database mail, set up notifications for alerts, Windows event logs, system databases checks, user databases checks, database encryption, check for Enterprise edition features, location of data files, check for triggers, wait stats, and index information.

Towards the end of this session, Ari gives a demo (sales pitch) of the Foglight Performance Analysis product from Quest Software. We are currently evaluating this product at work and when used properly, it can save tons of time and money.  The way it is designed and the information that it provides will help the DBA understand  what is happening, why it is happening and sometimes, how to fix the problem.

I also watched the “Opening Remarks” and it is a quick rundown of what is covered in all four sessions.  I give this event a thumbs up for its content and style -it is a must see for every DBA.