Voice of the DBA

Tag: monitoring

  • The DBA Team #1–Code and Slides

    Our first DBA Team event, in Richmond, VA just before SQL Saturday #187 went well. Overall I think our experiment was a success and we’re already talking about where and when we might do this again.

    In the meantime, we didn’t make a separate site for this series of events, being an experiment and all. I’m adding this post as a placeholder for the various slide decks and code.

    Core Monitoring for SQL Server (Steve Jones)

    Good DBAs ensure that they are always aware of the state of their instances. All systems should have monitoring in place, not just so you know when things go wrong, but so you understand what a normal workload looks like and can plan for the future. This session will cover the basics of monitoring a SQL Server system and the various metrics you should be tracking.

    Getting Started with SQL Server Backup (Grant Fritchey)

    Backups are fundamental to protecting the investment your business has in its data and they’re the foundation of disaster recovery planning. We’ll go over best practices for database backups, to ensure you’re establishing that foundation correctly within your systems. This introductory level session covers full, log, and differential backups, as well as restores and restores to a point in time. Come along to be sure you’ve got the right protection in place for your systems.

    Understanding Database Corruption (Grant Fritchey)

    A DBA’s primary purpose is to ensure that the information in their charge is accessible by the correct people within their organization. Despite everything you do to make sure you’ve got your servers configured, monitored, and tuned, with well-tested backups in place, you can still lose data through corruption. But what is corruption in a database? This session lays out exactly where database corruption can come from, how to find out exactly where the corruption is within a database, and  the methods you have available to recover from database corruption.

    Indexing for SQL Server (Steve Jones)

    Indexes are important for improving the performance of your queries, but they add overhead to your server and require maintenance. This session examines how indexes work and the basic maintenance that you should perform to ensure your system is running at its peak level.

  • Monitoring Is Essential

    Watch your systems like a hawk. You’ll be glad you did.

    An old phrase used in business is that knowledge is power. When you understand more about a particular situation, you can develop solutions and better understand which ones would both suit your environment better and solve any issues faster.

    As someone that has worked in a variety of production environments managing all different types of platforms, I have found it extremely career-enhancing to have knowledge about the entire environment. Knowing what is happening at any point in time has allowed me to answer pointed questions about the applications. With comprehensive monitoring set up in database servers, I have often found myself in a position to proactively prevent issues, or make preparations for a quick response when I do find problems.

    Over the years I developed a variety of techniques to monitor my own servers, often using third party solutions, enhanced with my own queries. I have learned that each system has its own idiosyncrasies, which often require custom queries to keep an eye on the pulse of the system. I’ve also learned that a regular exception report is the most valuable tool for me as a DBA. I assume most of my applications and scheduled tasks are working well; I just want a list of those things that have broken, or are not performing as expected sent to me every day, using the data from my various monitoring tools.

    I have found that tracking metrics and analyzing the data is a valuable tool in my DBA tool belt. I would go so far as to say that monitoring the systems that you work with is not only a best practice, it’s essential if you want to be an exceptional DBA.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

    We publish three versions of the podcast each day for you to enjoy.

  • Little Devices

    It seems that I get more and more done with my smartphone all the time. I find myself responding to lots of emails, having text or Twitter conversations, taking pictures, reading, even making notes on my iPhone. I can’t imagine every going back to a non-smartphone device. Whether it’s an iPhone, Android, or WinMo 7 device, I have found that they make me quite productive throughout the day.

    I was just starting to get away from plain phones when I last worked for a large corporation. These days, I see many of my friends sporting smart phones, and getting work done on them. I even have one Windows administrator friend that carries an iPad around work, RDP’ing into servers to handle small tasks.

    So I wonder how many database people can get things done. Since it’s Friday, I thought that it would make an interesting poll:

    How much of your work could you get done from a mobile device.

    I’m wondering if there is a chance that you can see a good portion of your administration, monitoring, or even daily work done from some device that isn’t a full size laptop? It could be a smartphone (Android, iOS, WinMo) or even a tablet (iPad/Galaxy) that allows you to actually knock things off your to-do list when you are away from your desk or don’t have a laptop.

    If you’ve never used a mobile device for doing work, please don’t complain about them. They are great devices and they’ve made me very productive when I can’t sit at a desk or carry a laptop. I think many others agree, and I’m interested in seeing how use mobile devices.

    Steve Jones

    If you’re a DBA, you might want to check out SQL Monitor, from my employer, Red Gate Software. Maybe your boss will let you get a copy and an iPad to manage your servers.