Processes and Practices

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Processes and Practices

Performance Tuning? Plan the Work, Work the Plan.

Last Updated August 27, 2017

In our new 2-day hands-on lab course, Performance Tuning By Example, students have a series of performance tuning goals they have to accomplish. For example, in one scenario they have to fix the performance problem only using indexes, and in another they’re only allowed to change code (but not indexes.) In each lab, they have…

Chaining Agent Tasks For Alerting The Right Way

Last Updated August 4, 2017

Erik Darling

Processes and Practices, Production Database Administration, SQL Server

Step By Step When you think about setting up maintenance, a persistent fear is that tasks may step on each other. You probably don’t want backups and CHECKDB and statistics maintenance running at the same time as statistics maintenance (notice I didn’t say index maintenance, here, because you’re smart and you skip it?). You may…

New 2-day Class: Performance Tuning By Example

Last Updated July 7, 2017

Brent Ozar

Company News, Processes and Practices

One of my most popular sessions is Watch Brent Tune Queries. I’ve updated it every year, tuning different queries, showing new tools like SentryOne’s Plan Explorer, StatisticsParser.com, SSMS’s plan comparison, and SSMS 2017’s new scenario evaluation tool. One hour is never enough – there’s so many tricks and tips I want to show in action,…

Free Webcast Next Tuesday: How to Triage SQL Server Emergencies

Last Updated April 11, 2017

Brent Ozar

Processes and Practices

I’m speaking at the PASS DBA Fundamentals Virtual Chapter next Tuesday! Here’s the topic: When the phone rings, you need a repeatable process to discern the symptoms, root cause, what will happen if you don’t take action, and based on that, what actions you should take. You’ll see Brent step through several emergency scenarios live,…

New White Paper: How to Build a SQL Server Disaster Recovery Plan with Google Compute Engine

Last Updated March 17, 2017

Tara Kizer

Google Compute Engine, High Availability, Log Shipping, Processes and Practices

You’re a systems administrator or database administrator who wants to protect your production SQL Server. However, you don’t have a separate data center or another colo site. Learn about what we call Log Shipping 2.0 You’re looking for instructions on: How to copy your SQL Server databases to Google Cloud Storage How to spin up…

4 Free Things to Do with a Slow SQL Server

Last Updated February 28, 2017

Brent Ozar

Processes and Practices, Wait Stats

Step 1. Run sp_Blitz and look for urgent warnings. sp_Blitz is one of the free scripts in our First Responder Kit. Just open the sp_Blitz.sql, run that to create the stored procedure, and type: Transact-SQL sp_Blitz 1 sp_Blitz It returns a prioritized list of things that are wrong, broken, or dangerous about your SQL Server. Focus on…

DBA Days: Pre-maintenance Window Rituals

Last Updated February 12, 2017

Erik Darling

Processes and Practices

Like a DBA batter’s box While we were hanging out in between webcasts at Dell, we got to talking about stuff we used to do before maintenance windows. Things that brought us good luck, warded off blue screens and failed patches, and just generally made us feel better about working well into the early AM…

What to Do When DBCC CHECKDB Reports Corruption

Last Updated April 13, 2018

Brent Ozar

Backup and Recovery, CHECKDB and Corruption, Processes and Practices, SQL Server

The instant you encounter corruption in a production SQL Server database, stop. Read this entire article first to understand the big picture, and then come back here to take action. First, understand that you shouldn’t start by trying to repair the corruption. You may be facing a storage subsystem problem where your storage is corrupting…

My Favorite Database Disaster Stories

Last Updated February 11, 2017

Brent Ozar

Backup and Recovery, Clients and Case Studies, Processes and Practices

The statute of limitations has passed, so this week on SQL Server Radio, I get together with Guy Glantser and Matan Yungman to talk about our favorite oops moments. I talked about my very first database disaster ever – done back when I was in my 20s and working for a photo studio, using Xenix, long…

How many servers can one person manage?

Last Updated February 9, 2017

Brent Ozar

Processes and Practices

HW – if all you do is rack & stack hardware, you can manage thousands of boxes. You see this at Facebook/Google type scales. OS – when you’re responsible for troubleshooting operating system problems (as opposed to simply re-imaging the box from scratch), you can manage hundreds of boxes or VMs. SQL – if you…

Why Nobody Ever Patches Their SQL Servers

Last Updated April 17, 2018

Brent Ozar

Always On Availability Groups, Processes and Practices, SQL Server

I saw a DBA.StackExchange.com question and had to laugh out loud: “Is there a cool way of performing CU updates for SQL Server on hundreds of machines?” Patching got me like No, and it has nothing to do with technology. Which servers are mission-critical 24/7 and can’t go down? Which servers can only be taken down…

How Do You Manage DBAs? Part 1: Measuring Backups

Last Updated February 9, 2017

Brent Ozar

Backup and Recovery, Processes and Practices

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…

Why You Shouldn’t Upgrade SQL Server

Last Updated February 9, 2017

Brent Ozar

Processes and Practices

Stop. Before you think about upgrading your existing SQL Server to the latest version, think it through. In retrospect, putting a new Prius engine in the Gran Prix wasn’t my best idea. Your hardware is old. Even if it’s just a couple of years old, the latest advances in processors, memory, and storage mean it’s…

Servers Need Expiration Dates

Last Updated February 9, 2017

Brent Ozar

Processes and Practices

Servers are like milk cartons: both need an expiration date printed clearly on the outside. SQL Server 2000 When a project needs a new database server, I ask the business users, “How long does this server need to last?” Inevitably somebody gives the flip answer of, “Forever.” I laugh along with the group and then…

Why Most People Don’t Follow Best Practices

Last Updated February 9, 2017

Kendra Little

Processes and Practices

“I don’t care about best practices, I do what I want!” We write a lot about best practices, we teach customers best practices, and we publish popular references for best practices about all sorts of things like performance monitoring, SQL Server Setup, and Availability Groups. But the internet is a sea of information and many…

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

The First Step to the Poor Man’s Runbook

Last Updated February 9, 2017

Brent Ozar

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…

TL;DR Use A Picture

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Jeremiah Peschka

Processes and Practices

When you run into problems at work, how do you tell your manager what you did? Typically you would write up the problem, the solution, and a quick summary of the outcome. If you’re like me, this isn’t a lot of fun. And, if your manager is anything like most managers, they don’t want to…

Ozar’s Hierarchy of Database Needs: a 6-Month DBA Training Plan

Last Updated July 10, 2019

Brent Ozar

Processes and Practices

You need to poop. Maybe not right now, but in general, you need to breathe, eat, drink, sleep, and poop. If you can’t do any of those things, then the rest of your needs will take a back seat until you can accomplish the basics. Psychology professor Abraham Maslow designed Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to…

How to Build a SQL Server Support Matrix

Last Updated August 9, 2018

Brent Ozar

Processes and Practices

When I want to check out a piece of software, one of the first things I look for (after the price tag) is the support matrix. I want to know what versions of SQL Server and Windows they support. I lined that up with the available machines I had in-house, picked the right platform, and…

What’s In Your Bug-Out Bag?

Last Updated February 9, 2017

Brent Ozar

Backup and Recovery, Processes and Practices

In a recent webcast on disaster recovery planning for small businesses, I talked about building a bug-out bag. My Bug-Out Bag Every IT professional should have a bug-out bag in the trunk of their car with enough stuff to let them hit the road for 24-48 hours straight. This gear helps you react more confidently to…

Processes and Practices

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