Advice for a Rookie DBA

  • Hello everyone!

    I'm new a DBA and  I was wondering if anyone could share some great experience in Database Administration and some of the challenges with performance issues and how to resolve them. Your overall advice on this new DBA journey will also be greatly appreciated.

    Thank you!

  • Restores.

    Restores matter more than backups. No one cares how good your backups are. They care whether or not you can restore the database. Learn to do restores in your sleep. Understand EXACTLY how to do a point in time restore. Practice these, a lot. Sooner or later, something will break and you'll need to restore a database. Scrambling to learn when it's an emergency is no fun at all.

    Performance issues almost always come down to code and structure. Those and statistics. So, set up statistics maintenance as early as possible and ensure that it's working well for you. After that, you just have to spend time working on code and structure.

    I'd say those are pretty foundational for me.

    "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

  • Also understand how the data is secured. Something else you want to know before it's urgent.

    Grant is, of course, also correct. Make sure you can restore your databases. Just because the backup process doesn't give any errors doesn't mean you can restore the backup or that the backup has all the data. Think about contingencies - if you restore to a different server you might have to think about items such as encryption keys.

  • I really appreciate all your feedback and advice on this subject matter!

    Also, what does it entail to be very successful in this field?

  • Sopheeyah wrote:

    Also, what does it entail to be very successful in this field?

    Tenacity, lots and lots of study, lots and lots of practice, and a whole lot of real life experience... just like any other field.  And, to be sure, it's absolutely worth it enjoyment-wise, pay-wise, and people-wise.

    --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)

  • What Jeff said.

    Plus, spend as much time learning and practicing your people skills as you do your technical skills. You'll be much more successful if you can communicate well.

    "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

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