Kazmerelda (10/25/2016)
Sorry this might be me ranting abit, but am prepared for someone to tell me I am being unreasonable hehe.So I work within a BI team doing the technical stuff for our servers from a SQL perspective. Our business decided they didn't need SQL DBA team I was in so I was part of a general IT helpdesk team for a while. It was hard, I had several clashes over machine specs because speccing up an SQL machine is sometimes the next level and there are many unknowns (growth being one of them).
So I have spec'd up our new BI server as it has to move. I gave them the space requirements based on our current set up, MCR and also how much I believe we will grow. Space is not so much of an issue this time as it's going to be virtualised so space can be added where needed (current set up is physical).
However, I have now been told there is only half the space for us for the new prod (yes I said prod) server, and we can have more space once we have moved over to it (from the old prod server once it is old and the new one is working).
However, in my mind unless we move over everything we can't test it properly and I am being asked to cherry pick the important stuff. Even if I take off the backups we could to start with do without it is still 500GB over the minimum they want us to run with.
I am usually quite amiable but I am abit vexed and want to stamp my foot (no tantrums more, hey no we need this space).
Has anyone else come across this? I am starting to want to be a proper DBA again, forgotten how exciting these type of discussions are!
The bottom line is that if you need the space, you need the space. Without having the space required, you can't test all parts of the migration. Do the SAN administrators expect you to write a migration and not test it?
I have to ask what you mean by "Even if I take off the backups" above. Remember that the first duty of any DBA is to protect the data. If you run without backups for any period of time, you're going to need one. Also, running without regular backups tends to bloat the log files, making your space problem worse.
Let's say for a moment that you get your data volume space and get the job done, running without scheduled backups. The backups are not setup in a database job and production is running on the new server. By the sounds of it, you're going to have a hard time getting backup volume space allocated. We know what happens next - you're going to need a backup and you won't have one. You have to ask if you want to put the company and yourself in that situation.