Where are all the MVBs?

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21 posts, Page 2 of 3

Where are all the MVBs?

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Posted Monday, September 26, 2011 8:26 AM

SSCoach

Group: General Forum Members
Last Login: 2 days ago @ 1:55 PM
Points: 15,442, Visits: 9,571

While I agree with the cynical bits about never getting agreement from the exact people who are the biggest block in getting the job done, I also think Tony's request for an outline of policy areas, for new and aspiring DBAs, is a good idea.

I also think a wiki would be the easiest way to get it done.

Could start with just "you'll need policies on backups, downtime, hardware requirements/configuration, security/auditing, DAL/DB APIs (procs vs inline code vs isolated DAL), coding standards, data access (possibly including PCI compliance), data retention (PCI again), patching, dev-to-prod path, on-call schedules, source control/change tracking, and beer popsicles", just to start out. Easy to expand from there, since I'm sure I missed a few of the top-level things. With those in place, it would be a matter of stubbing out some suggested policies based on shop-size, et al. If each policy is defined on the main page, and links to details, it would be easy to read and learn from.

Make it operate under a beerware license, so anyone can copy-and-paste into their own document for internal editing and use, and you're good to go.

I think anything other than a wiki is going to require too much editorial oversite to coordinate. It can be locked down to approved authors only, and probably should be, but there should be open comments (moderated, of course).

- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
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"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon

Post #1181025

Posted Tuesday, September 27, 2011 6:45 AM

SSC Veteran

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Last Login: Yesterday @ 3:16 PM
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GSquared, I think you've laid it out nicely.

What about changes as time went on. As things change would the wiki be versioned? or just updated to keep in line with the most recent?

Post #1181703

Posted Tuesday, September 27, 2011 6:57 AM

SSCoach

Group: General Forum Members
Last Login: 2 days ago @ 1:55 PM
Points: 15,442, Visits: 9,571

Brandon Leach (9/27/2011)

What about changes as time went on. As things change would the wiki be versioned? or just updated to keep in line with the most recent?

That'd be up to the authors and admins/editors, I guess.

Most wiki software keeps version tracking.

- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
Property of The Thread

"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon

Post #1181715

Posted Tuesday, September 27, 2011 11:04 PM

Forum Newbie

Group: General Forum Members
Last Login: Tuesday, January 22, 2013 12:41 PM
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Hi Everyone,
I've read through this article and the varying posts from personal experience, work trends to wiki suggestions. It seems to me that this article has presented the same thing that it is written about, discussion with no solution. It would seem to me, as a productive stand point that if each individual would've posted one template on a specific topic i.e. backups, security, etc then the solutions for having good overall practice and policies would've been answered.

Just as a thought. I'm currently going through this very process and it is as we all know "chains and whips, whips and chains."

as I make my way through this process I'll begin to post my templates. Though they may not be spectacular maybe someone out there will find them useful.

Some do, but most don't and that is all there is too it. That is why I am I, and wish that I wasn't
-Eyore on Franz Kaufka-

Post #1182185

Posted Wednesday, September 28, 2011 2:06 PM

SSCrazy

Group: General Forum Members
Last Login: 2 days ago @ 9:35 AM
Points: 2,749, Visits: 1,407

"This report, by its very length, defends itself against the risk of being read." (Winston Churchill)

The problem with policies and procedures is summed up by the Winston Churchill quote above.

I think an intranet/wiki is a good place to start but there are a few gotchas. It is quite a skill to be able to do the following:-
1. Write something that is both useful and easily digestible
2. Structure information so it is easy to navigate
3. Categorise information so others find it is easy to find

When I write wiki entries I take the following approach
1. Start with a basic page that summarises the key points
2. Always include a "last updated date" and "last updated author" at the head of the document below the title
3. Always include a table-of-contents (preferably hyperlinked to the subject headers) and "quick links" before the first subheading
4. Always give a concise description of what the document is for so the reader can determine if it is going to contain something useful
5. Hyperlink to documents giving more detailed information about the key subjects.
6. On a child page always have a link back to the parent in the "quick links" if you don't have a bread crumb trail.

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Post #1182807

Posted Thursday, October 06, 2011 8:35 AM

Mr or Mrs. 500

Group: Administrators
Last Login: Wednesday, May 08, 2013 10:31 AM
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Thanks for all the comments and sorry, in turn, for being slow to respond. I've been looking into how quickly we could set up a small wiki area on SQLServerCentral, and the answer seems to be "not very", so I'm wondering about alternative "low barrier" ways to test out this idea.

I am open to all suggestions, as I'd really like to at least try to get some mometum behind this one. Maybe a simple Google Docs area, to start off with, where we anyone interested could upload and edit documents? Probably we jsut need a space to try out a few things while, behind the scenes, I work at getting a wiki area on SSC?

Cheers,
Tony.

Post #1186531

Posted Thursday, October 06, 2011 9:35 AM

SSCoach

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Last Login: 2 days ago @ 1:55 PM
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I haven't used Google docs much, but it sounds like it might be a way to get started.

How would you migrate from docs to wiki?

- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
Property of The Thread

"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon

Post #1186586

Posted Thursday, October 06, 2011 9:57 AM

SSC-Enthusiastic

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A quick option, and one that would allow exporting to other Wiki software at a later date, is Zoho Wiki. The main drawback of this option is their pricing model which only allows 3 users for free.

However, giving them a free add on the site might convince them to allow free access to a larger group. They could say no, but we could ask.

Post #1186600

Posted Thursday, October 06, 2011 9:58 AM

SSCrazy

Group: General Forum Members
Last Login: Yesterday @ 7:15 AM
Points: 2,864, Visits: 2,467

Jeff
a lot of DBA's have become like old folks (a serious compliment, actually). They really know how to get things done but everyone thinks they're hard of hearing and possibly mute. They're really not... they're just tired of listening to stupid things and speaking to deaf ears

Overall - GREAT COMMENTS. I am in one of these positions right now, and found this morning that it is about to get dramatically worse.

Direct supervisor, when we talk gets that glazed over deer in the headlights look, while his super knows much more than all in all areas.

Latest discussions - why you can't treat a 2 Tb DB the same as a 100GB DB. w00t

w00t

As they say - onward and upward Smile

Smile

Steve Jimmo
Sr DBA
“If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a Nation gone under." - Ronald Reagan

Post #1186602

Posted Thursday, October 06, 2011 12:34 PM

SSC Veteran

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Last Login: Yesterday @ 3:16 PM
Points: 272, Visits: 205

Seems like we agree Wiki is the way to go. So what do we need in the meantime to put something up and get things rolling

Do we want to self host temporarily? if so we'd need
Hosting?
database?
Wiki software? I'm sure we can get something free for a community resource
What else?

I could donate space and bandwidth from my personal hosting, plus a 10gig sql server 2008 db. But we wouldn't have ALTER permission on the DB.

We could also as was mentioned go the google docs route but that seems somewhat cumbersome and migrating to a wiki could be difficult later on.

Post #1186727

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