Pro Active DBA

Question

Pro Active DBA

jacop

SSC Enthusiast

Points: 129
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September 16, 2013 at 2:32 am

#282535

Hi Guys,
I've recently been appointed to maintain my companies internal DB's. Must also stress the point that the DB's are quit critical, in the sense of CRM, Payroll etc.
I'm also very new to the administration environment of sql, however i've been working on it for the past 4 years now. But my experience was purely based on writing queries, scheduling backups, really basic stuff.
My purpose of this posting is, what can i do to be pro active in this new position? There is no handovers from previous dba's as all were actually outsourced. I'm the first internal dba appointed. I've got a chart of SQL Duties which is daily, weekly, monthly and yearly checks. I can also schedule the outsourced dba to be onsite, but i want to be prepared for that visit.
Any suggestions or advise? And i'm busy doing SQL 2012 courses and exams, but the process is "slowly but surely"
Would be nice for professional advise.

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Bhuvnesh SSC Guru Points: 59351 More actions · Answer 1

jacop (9/16/2013)
what can i do to be pro active in this new position?

In your daily list , there must be some monitoring job , some check list or some minor mintenance task .. do them efficiently and carefully. 🙂

-------Bhuvnesh----------
I work only to learn Sql Server...though my company pays me for getting their stuff done;-)

Steve Jones - SSC Editor SSC Guru Points: 734418 More actions · Answer 2

You might check this out: http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/books/67441

KumarVelayutham SSCrazy Points: 2204 More actions · Answer 3

This article will help you !

http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Monitoring/67546/

Regards,
Kumar

nick.mcdermaid Hall of Fame Points: 3809 More actions · Answer 4

Whats the absolutely worst thing that could happen to your databases? What phone call would make your heart drop? OK now manage that risk by putting into place processes to reduce that risk.

So for starters make sure your backups work - don't just backup, run restores so you know they work.

Next is probably an application slowdown, so take some baselines now on resource usage so you have something to measure against when a slowdown occurs.

shoestringdba SSCertifiable Points: 6226 More actions · Answer 5

Might I suggest Rodney Landrum's SQL Tacklebox located here:

http://www.red-gate.com/community/books/sql-server-tacklebox

He includes a boatload of scripts - downloadable as a zip file - for documenting and monitoring SQL Server instances using T-SQL and SSIS. At the very least it will give you a handle on what you've got running loose in your shop. And you can't beat the price!

____________
Just my $0.02 from over here in the cheap seats of the peanut gallery - please adjust for inflation and/or your local currency.

Tony Savoie Mr or Mrs. 500 Points: 511 More actions · Answer 6

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing....be careful.

First off, my advice is: Change nothing.

Monitor monitor monitor. Get to know the environment. Check all of the agent jobs, what do they do, when do they run, how long, what is the history - solid runs or occational failures. Do you need to deal with the failures? How?

Is a backup process in place? Are the indexes being maintained (http://ola.hallengren.com/)? Is there a process for monitoring disk use and datafile use/growth?

Brent Ozars sp_Blitz is a good starting point for digging around, but again dont change a thing based on this output. That wonky setting may be there for a reason.

Get the daily operational stuff down. Then you can look at improvements.

Bhuvnesh SSC Guru Points: 59351 More actions · Answer 7

Tony Savoie (10/2/2013)
dont change a thing based on this output. That wonky setting may be there for a reason.

i had good(even bad too ) experience on this

-------Bhuvnesh----------
I work only to learn Sql Server...though my company pays me for getting their stuff done;-)

andrew gothard SSChampion Points: 12301 More actions · Answer 8

http://www.SQLSkills.com

Some of this stuff is going to be a bit above your level at this point, but two resources I would recommend you digest right now would be their CommonSQLServerMyths pdf. There's a lot of SQL Server - bluntly, some of it poor and/or downright dangerous, this is a good primer on some of the commonest "wisdom" to discount.

Also their accidental DBA advice posts from a couple of months back will be of value.

Plus, their bad advice rollup http://www.sqlskills.com/blogs/paul/category/bad-advice/

They also sell training courses on the Pluralsight, some links here. http://www.sqlskills.com/blogs/paul/new-online-course-detecting-and-correcting-database-corruption/ as well as any other training your company is providing you with, you should try and get them to swing for this as well IMO. (I am nothing to do with SQLSkills, btw and have no links with them).

http://www.brentozar.com is also a good resource - also provide excellent tools and free and paid for online training

I'm a DBA.
I'm not paid to solve problems. I'm paid to prevent them.

Jeff Moden SSC Guru Points: 1003851 More actions · Answer 9

Tony Savoie (10/2/2013)
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing....be careful.
First off, my advice is: Change nothing.
Monitor monitor monitor. Get to know the environment. Check all of the agent jobs, what do they do, when do they run, how long, what is the history - solid runs or occational failures. Do you need to deal with the failures? How?
Is a backup process in place? Are the indexes being maintained (http://ola.hallengren.com/)? Is there a process for monitoring disk use and datafile use/growth?
Brent Ozars sp_Blitz is a good starting point for digging around, but again dont change a thing based on this output. That wonky setting may be there for a reason.
Get the daily operational stuff down. Then you can look at improvements.

+10,000!!!!

--Jeff Moden

RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.

Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

sql-noob SSC-Addicted Points: 417 More actions · Answer 10

List to do according to priority. (foremost imortant things)

1. Make sure any kind of MONITORING is in place. (If not buy it by discussing it with your manager)

2. Make sure all the databases in the environment are BACKED up. (At least full backup but should suffice the SLA)

3. At this point i would recommend you to DOCUMENT all the database servers, this is really important to understand the environment before doing any changes to it. You can refer http://www.brentozar.com/archive/2013/01/documentation-it-doesnt-suck/

raymond_an 92225 Newbie Points: 3 More actions · Answer 11

alright mate - all the best with your new role .

also i have found this is quiet useful

http://www.brentozar.com/archive/2013/07/announcing-our-free-accidental-dba-6-month-training-plan/

Bill (DBAOnTheGo) Hall of Fame Points: 3841 More actions · Answer 12

Lots of good advice here. the books section is useful on SQL Server Central. Accidental DBA[/url] is a good book to look into. There are a lot of training sites. BrentOzar.com has a 29$ course listing out a lot of the free training.[/url] I have a list here too. There are a ton of resources to work with.

#1 backups

#2 look for old documentation

#3 don't change things on a whim

#4 study, look, ask, learn.

.

Grant Fritchey SSC Guru Points: 398679 More actions · Answer 13

Wonderfully excellent advice already posted here. I'll add one more. Check out Jason Strate's Monthly DBA Checklist[/url]. It's a pretty good starting point for ensuring you have the basics in place.

"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore Roosevelt

Author of:
SQL Server Execution Plans
SQL Server Query Performance Tuning