Office Hours in the Detroit Airport

I'm in the Detroit airport today, en route home after a client gig. I've got some time to kill, so let's go through your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento.

00:00 Start
00:39 SQLLearner: Hi Brent! I'm curious about the two versions of SQL ConstantCare® — the Free Basics Edition and the full version. Could you explain the main differences in features and what each version is best suited for?
01:09 Harold B: Hey Brent! Is there any good reliable tool/plugin (preferably by M$) that you have used or suggest, where we can have versioning control of the schema/definition for Tables, procs, views, function onces they are created or changed.
01:48 Concern : Hi Brent! A few years ago, developers couldn't write complex queries, so I, as a SQL Server expert, wrote them. But these days, AI does it much faster. Is it the end of my job?
03:22 CuriousDBA: I saw your post saying you no longer tweet on X. What prompted the decision?
03:38 JrDBA: Hi Brent! You often say to document planned/unplanned failovers with screenshots so any admin can do it. What’s the best way or tooling you've seen teams use to keep all that DBA documentation (failovers, log shipping, perf, perms) organised & versioned?
04:25 My Coffee Got COLD: I have databases in Read-Only mode, so why do the sizes of the differential backups change?
05:05 Dopinder: We are forced to use linked server queries due to architecture decisions made years ago. What are your top tips for improving linked server query performance between two SQL servers?
05:37 MyTeaGotCold: Aside from hacking in batch mode, have you ever found a use for a columnstore index on a table with less than one million rows?
06:16 NotATempDB: On a brand new DB, what are the reasons to use a collation other than the default?
06:33 AG Avoider: How is data loss possible on an FCI? Your HA/DR worksheet says it is but I can't imagine it.
07:05 DBAInAction: Hi Brent, Trying to shrink a 25 TB DB by ~40% to reduce storage costs and improve maintenance across 6 Always On AG replicas. Main goal is to safely reclaim disk space by archiving historical data with minimal downtime and impact on availability. Appreciate your inputs, Thanks!
07:49 Eddie: Many of the SQL DBA jobs want reporting experience in SSRS / Power BI. Is this common? Not a reporting guru.
08:25 Brent's Lungs Got Cold : Have you ever seen a BAG used for DR with an FCI for HA? I can see some benefits over log shipping, but I don't know how well FCIs and BAGs mix.
08:47 Mike: Are there professional associations for guys working with databases ? specifically SQL Server and/or Azure SQL stack. Can anyone join ?
09:27 KyleDevDBA: In a recent office hours you mentioned that you run LLMs locally. What has been your experience with performance of the models and which do you prefer?
10:36 Mike: Got a shared system that supports multiple clients. Importing data for one client often causes us to need to re-run statistics, affecting other clients. What's your take on partitioning tables by some kind of client id and then only running statistics on those tables by client id
11:56 Bandhu: What's your opinion of the new native support for JSON in SQL Server 2025?
12:35 Cam: Hi Brent. My friend has a table that acts as a cache with a 1 hour lifetime. Expired data is removed by a frequent fast ordered delete job. In testing they see frequent stats updates causing bad performance (100% CPU). External cache is on the roadmap. Any tips in the meantime?
13:37 Accidental DBA: General Best Practice Question: Return one record with sorting done on Sql Server. Or return many records (less than 1000) to C# and have the app sort to get the final single record. Query plans for testing only show a very minor difference (C# sort slightly better).
14:31 Ricardo: What are the signs to look for when it's time to find a new job?
15:24 DWKing: Hi Brent, Yourself and many others mention that Fabric isn't production ready and has many issues. What would you recommend for a company setting up a new Dat Warehouse from scratch in 2025?
16:16 Devin: What are your pros / cons of working on a team of DBA's vs working as the lone DBA? Which did you prefer?