The wording of all of sp_BlitzIndex's warnings is now much more clear and inclusive thanks to hard work by W. Eli Hayes and VladDBA.
When Kendra Little first wrote sp_BlitzIndex about a decade ago to help you analyze your index designs, we brainstormed about how to surface warnings. Index design is not black and white: for example, for some tables and workloads, 10 nonclustered indexes isn't a big deal, but for other tables and workloads, it's way too many and causes blocking issues. So we needed a way to talk about warnings in a fun way that indicated some professional analysis was required, and that the situation may or may not be a big deal. We settled on psychological-sounding phrases like "Index Hoarder", "Aggressive Indexes", "Abnormal Psychology", etc.
The psychological terms worked, but we had to explain 'em every time. They were more of a barrier to understanding than an enhancement. So now, your sp_BlitzIndex advice looks more like this:
Simpler, clearer, and more inclusive. Although now I gotta go re-record all my index training, hahaha! I'll work on that after the Black Friday sales finish.
To get the new version:
- Download the updated FirstResponderKit.zip
- Azure Data Studio users with the First Responder Kit extension: ctrl/command+shift+p, First Responder Kit: Import.
- PowerShell users: run Install-DbaFirstResponderKit from dbatools
- Get The Consultant Toolkit to quickly export the First Responder Kit results into an easy-to-share spreadsheet
Consultant Toolkit Changes
Updated to this month's First Responder Kit, but no changes to the spreadsheet template. In case you haven't upgraded in a few months, you're probably upgrading now because your old version has expired, so here's what we did in May because the changes were pretty big:- Supports Microsoft Entra multi-factor authentication (MFA)
- Automatically retries failed connections, allowing you to more easily gather data from Azure SQL DB Serverless databases that auto-paused
- No longer requires create-table permissions, so it works better in environments where you can pull diagnostic data but not see database contents
- Requires .NET Desktop Runtime 7 or higher on the machine where you run the Consultant Toolkit, typically your jump box or laptop (not the SQL Server itself)
sp_Blitz Changes
- Enhancement: added checks for unusual Query Store configurations and missing trace flags. (#3553, thanks Reece Goding.)
- Fix: when it was run without SA permission, it would throw a false error about the number of TempDB files not matching. (#3578, thanks Tisit.)
- Fix: when it was run with SA permission, the "No Failsafe Operator Configured" wasn't being reported. (#3577, thanks Tisit.)
- Fix: added some wait types to the ignorable wait type list. (#3562, thanks Reece Goding.)
- Fix: when it was run with SA permission, the invalid logins check wasn't being reported. (#3551, thanks PowerDBAKlaas.)
sp_BlitzIndex Changes
- Enhancement: change index warnings from psychological terms, to more inclusive ones. (#3571, thanks W. Eli Hayes and VladDBA.)
- Enhancement: faster processing of missing indexes. (#3556, thanks Matt Maddocks and Dean MacFadyen for reporting.)
sp_BlitzLock Changes
- Fix: @debug = 1 would throw an error if your plan cache was empty. (#3567, thanks VladDBA.)
- Fix: the @OutputTableName parameter would sometimes throw errors depending on your database context. (#3566, thanks BilliousBT.)
sp_DatabaseRestore Changes
- Enhancement: fix backup file selection for non-split full backups used with the @StoPAt command. (#3560, thanks Rob Hague.)
For Support
When you have questions about how the tools work, talk with the community in the #FirstResponderKit Slack channel. Be patient: it's staffed by volunteers with day jobs. If it's your first time in the community Slack, get started here.When you find a bug or want something changed, read the contributing.md file.
When you have a question about what the scripts found, first make sure you read the "More Details" URL for any warning you find. We put a lot of work into documentation, and we wouldn't want someone to yell at you to go read the fine manual. After that, when you've still got questions about how something works in SQL Server, post a question at DBA.StackExchange.com and the community (that includes me!) will help. Include exact errors and any applicable screenshots, your SQL Server version number (including the build #), and the version of the tool you're working with.
