Voice of the DBA

Author: way0utwest

  • Common Problems with Backup and Recovery and How to Handle Them

    The basic concepts behind taking a backup are well understood, but people are frequently surprised by the many ways backups can go wrong. First, we’ll explore the most common problems around SQL Server backup and recovery, so that you can spot any issues in your own environment. Then, we’ll talk about how to prevent these issues in the first place. The foundation of disaster recovery is having a verified backup in place, so the knowledge you’ll gain from this session could help to save your business.

    We will look at issues with:

    • file backups
    • disk space
    • backup chain issues
    • full transaction logs
    • off-site storage
    • more

    Slides:

    SQL in the City – Common Backup Problems SitC_sj.pptx

     

  • Hybrid Databases

    SQL Server already handles hybrid data.

    We are dealing with more and more data all the time, and in more and more formats. As noted in this piece, companies are receiving data in new formats, from a variety of sources, and the traditional relational database isn’t always the best fit for the processing, storage, and management of the information.

    However SQL Server isn’t just a relational database. It handles unstructured data well, with the Filestream and Filetable enhancements to varbinary columns. We can even read into this unstructured data with iFilters that we install on our instances. In fact, I’ll be talking about these filters at DevConnections on Wednesday.

    SQL Server has StreamInsight for complex event processing, allowing you to handle very quick streams of data that could overwhelm your OLTP architecture.  If that’s not enough, there are connectors that allow you to integrate with other data processing architectures, like Hadoop.

    With all the various subsystems like SSIS (ETL), Reporting Services (exports to other formats), Service Broker (messaging), spatial data, and more, I think SQL Server is an amazing hybrid database platform in and of itself, without any extra charges for the various features (like some other platforms). That’s not to say you shouldn’t use any other platfoms. If they work, use them and integrate with SQL Server, but if you don’t have other databases in place, I’m not sure you need to look past SQL Server for many of your needs.

  • Best Practices for Database Deployment

    The easiest part of any deployment is running the deployment script on production. But what have you done to prepare that script for production? Was the script tested? Is the script tightly coupled with the application code?

    The difference between a successful deployment and a failed or problematic deployment is all the preparation work you’ve done to ensure that you’re deploying the right script, the right way to your production environment. This session will explore best practices that you can implement to ensure that your deployments are as successful as they can be.

    Slides:

  • Automated Build and Test

    Continuous Integration (CI) is a well known process in the software development world, but it’s not often implemented with databases. This is despite the fact that database code could benefit from the practice of checking the changes on a regular basis for potential issues. This talk will show how to implement continuous integration for databases and include more realistic testing of the code for potential issues.

    We will set up CI for a SQL Server database project, using the following tools:

    • Team City (CI Server)
    • Subversion (VCS)
    • SQL Automation Pack (database -> CI integration)
    • tSQLt  testing framework
    • SQL Data Generator

    Slides