Backup and Recovery

When the DBA reports to you, ask yourself two questions: “What would I fire the DBA for?” “How can I prove that they’re not doing that?” There’s a lot of possible answers to #1, many of which involve cocaine and the office copier, but let’s focus on one I hear a lot: an inability to restore…

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…