Backup and Recovery

One of the questions we ask every new client is, “How much data is this application allowed to lose, and how long is it allowed to be down for?” This leads to some really fun conversations. The business users assume that the database will never lose data and cannot go down. The IT admins assume…

Back Up Transaction Logs Every Minute. Yes, Really.

February 26, 2014

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Right now, your transaction log backups are set up to run every 15 minutes, every hour, or maybe every few hours. It’s time for a reality check. Figure out what internal customer owns the data inside the database, and walk into their office. Ask them how much data they’re comfortable losing. You’re probably going to…

Improving the Performance of Backups

January 21, 2014

There will come a time when your database backups will not be as fast as you would like them to be. Over time, the volume of data you’re storing will grow, and backups will take longer – but your weekly or daily maintenance windows don’t grow as well. Backups can be resource-intensive, using I/O and…

Top 10 Signs Your SQL Server is Neglected

December 30, 2013

Kendra Little

“That’s an interesting configuration you’ve got there.” Sometimes you see someone with toilet paper sticking to their shoe, their shirt tucked into their underwear, or badly in need of a tissue to get rid of whatever that is hanging out of their nose. It’s only right to find a discreet way to let them know…

How to Winterize Your Database

November 14, 2013

In Michigan where I grew up, we pull the boats out of the water at the beginning of the fall. It’s a bit of a sad time, realizing we’re done having fun on the water, and the seasons are about to change. Winterized boats at Goose Island Boatyard – Daniel X. O’Neil To prepare a…

3 Things You Need to Start Doing to Your Database Server

April 23, 2013

Taking care of your health is incredibly important (says the marathon runner). Eating right, exercising, and getting plenty of rest help you stay healthy and perform optimally. Does “an apple a day keep the doctor away” apply to cupcake apples? Your database server’s health is important to your company’s health. You need to take regular…

Answers to Common High Availability and Disaster Recovery Questions

April 22, 2013

Backup and Recovery, Clustering

clustering, dr, ha

In our recent webcast on HA & DR basics for DBAs, we got a bunch of questions that couldn’t be answered fast enough. Here you go: Q: Do any of these techniques work for companies with just 1-2 IT staff? To keep things simple, I’d check out virtualization replication like VMware SRM. SRM isn’t…

My ex-girlfriends would have been surrounded by red and yellow.

The First Step to the Poor Man’s Runbook

December 18, 2012

Backup and Recovery, Processes and Practices

In theory, before you introduce a new system – database server, load balancer, virtualization infrastructure, etc – you build a robust runbook that documents how you’ll handle every conceivable scenario. When there’s any kind of failure, you’ll simply turn to chapter X and start going through a precise checklist that will guide you to the…

Backups Gone Bad: The Danger of Differentials

December 4, 2012

backup

As your databases get bigger, you’re going to run out of time to do nightly full backups. You’re going to be tempted by the siren song of differential backups. The idea is that you’ll do full backups on the weekends, and then differential backups each night of the week. Differential backups aren’t just the sum…

Who’s testing your restores? No, really – who’s testing your restores?

October 30, 2012

I recently posed the question, “Who’s taking your backups?” This is of utmost importance, because your business’s data is the business. Protecting it and backing it up need to be priorities for DBAs. Now, for my next question: who is responsible for restoring those backups? The saying goes that your data is only as good…

Who’s taking your backups? No, really – who’s taking your backups?

August 28, 2012

Who in your company is responsible for database backups? It’s Me Fantastic! Check your backup job. Did it run successfully the last time it was supposed to? Are the files where they are supposed to be? Have you checked the integrity of the backup files by restoring them to a secondary server? If you are…

SQL Server Tricks: How Can I Restore a Subset of My Tables to A Prior Point in Time?

May 17, 2012

Kendra Little

This question came up when working with a client last week. The team mentioned they were planning to move some tables into a new filegroup. The new filegroup is intended to help quickly restore data in cases when a monthly process goes off the rails and leaves the data in some tables in a bad…

Maintenance Plans and Roombas Suck – in a Good Way

April 17, 2012

Every now and then, I hear an experienced DBA say, “SQL Server maintenance plans for backups, indexes, and statistics? What, are you kidding me? Nobody uses maintenance plans because they suck.” They say maintenance plans are so inflexible because they insist on defragging or rebuilding every index, every time, regardless of how little the table…

Free Scripts to Test Your Backups on World Backup Day

March 26, 2012

March 31st is World Backup Day, and while most of the press will be focusing on backing up your priceless lolcat photos, it’s still a good time to talk with management about your database backups. Your boss will have some simple questions, and you can arm yourself with a few easy queries. Are We Backing…

How to Test Your Backup Strategy: Five Simple Questions

February 7, 2012

Kendra Little

Backup strategies are like rashes: people tend to ignore them for as long as they can, then they ask a specialist if it’s going to be OK. There’s a lot of good ways to back up databases. The challenge is finding best strategy for your data. To find out if your SQL Server backup strategy measures…

My Easy New Year’s Resolutions (Guest Post)

December 30, 2011

Hi! I’m your SQL Server. I know you don’t usually listen to me, so I’ve decided to take a drastic step and find you where you spend all your time – Brent’s blog. Seriously, you need to spend less time on the intertubes and more time on the error logs. You’re lucky this post is…

Beep beep, back that thing up. Wait, on second thought...

The 9 Letters That Get DBAs Fired

December 22, 2011

Architecture, Backup and Recovery

I’m proud to say that I’ve only lost one job in my life. I was a grocery store bagger when the store came under pressure to increase their percentage of minority workers. They laid off all of the Caucasian baggers, but I’m not bitter. I actually loved bagging groceries, and if I hadn’t been laid…

Unless you're running Developer Edition in production. Arrr, pirates!

Local Backups Are The New Offsite Backups

November 1, 2011