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Production Database Administration

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Production Database Administration

DBA Training Plan 3: Treat Your Servers Like Cattle, Not Like Pets

July 22, 2019

Backup and Recovery, DBA Training Plan

In our last post in this series, I talked about why you should be using Ola Hallengren’s maintenance script for backups and sp_DatabaseRestore for faster restores. These two tools have implications for how you build, back up, recover, and fail over your SQL Server. There’s a saying in the cloud: treat your servers like cattle,…

Nines don't matter if users aren't happy

DBA Training Plan 2: Backups (And More Importantly, Restores)

July 17, 2019

Backup and Recovery, DBA Training Plan

When I first started out as a SQL Server DBA, I thought things were going well as long as the backup jobs ran successfully. I’d go into SQL Server Agent every now and then, make sure they were still running, and … that was the end of it. I figured if disaster ever struck, I’d…

DBA Training Plan 1: Build a Server Inventory

July 16, 2019

DBA Training Plan

At your company, walk into the VP of Sales’s office and ask them how many salespeople they have. NO, I mean, don’t actually DO that, because he’s going to ask you why the sales app is so slow. But I mean, imagine if you COULD walk into his office and ask him that. I bet…

Welcome to the DBA Training Plan.

July 15, 2019

DBA Training Plan

Foreword: 8 years ago, I launched an email series with a 6-Month DBA Training Plan. I sent one email per week, bringing people up to speed on the most important topics that nobody taught ’em along the way. It’s hard to believe it’s been 8 years! This month, I’m revisiting the emails, updating their content,…

Big tequila

Things to Think About When Your Databases Grow Quickly

June 25, 2019

Production Database Administration

In SQL ConstantCare®, we’re adding a notification for when your data size grows >10% in a single week. When this happens, you want to stop for a second to ask yourself a few questions: Did someone just create a backup table? Folks often do a SELECT INTO to back up an important table right before…

SQL Saturday Dallas

What Happens to DBAs When We Move to the Cloud?

June 10, 2019

Production Database Administration

I’m finishing up a bit of a summer tour – Techorama Belgium, SQL Saturday Dallas, SQL Saturday South Florida, and this week, SQL Intersection in Orlando – and I’ve gotten the same question from several attendees. It goes something like this: “My company hasn’t moved to the cloud yet, but at every conference session, I…

Things SQL Server Setup Doesn’t Do – And Should

May 30, 2019

Production Database Administration

During the setup wizard, SQL Server should ask for your email address. It should suggest that you use a distribution list for people on your team, so that someone gets the alerts when you’re out on vacation. Then, it should send these common failure alerts to you rather than making you set them up manually.…

My kind of upgrade

5 Questions to Ask When You Upgrade SQL Server

May 27, 2019

Production Database Administration

Whether you’re looking to go cutting-edge and hop on SQL Server 2019 as soon as it’s available, or whether you’re just trying to evacuate from SQL Server 2008 to anything that’s going to be supported after this summer, you’re probably doing upgrade projects. This is a good time to ask yourself 5 questions: 1. Do…

Countdown clock at SQLServer2008.com

What You Said You’re Going to Do About SQL Server 2008

April 3, 2019

Production Database Administration

Last week, I asked you what you were going to do about SQL Server 2008’s fast-approaching end-of-support date. Countdown clock at SQLServer2008.com Here were some of my favorite responses from blog comments and Twitter. Terry’s been doing a good diligent job, but struggling to keep up: Like Andrew we’ve been working on retiring/migrating off 2008…

sys.dm_server_memory_dumps

What should you do about memory dumps?

February 22, 2019

Production Database Administration

A SQL Server monitoring tool is warning you that you’re getting memory dumps, and you’re wondering what that means. This isn’t normal: you’re encountering a situation where SQL Server is so freaked out that it’s unable to proceed normally with a query. In order to help you (and really, Microsoft) debug the problem, it’s calling…

[Video] How to Capture Baselines with sp_BlitzFirst

February 15, 2019

Monitoring, sp_BlitzFirst, Videos

Everybody tells you to capture baselines – but what exactly are you supposed to capture? Which Perfmon counters matter? How do you track which data files are growing, and which ones are slow? How can you track which queries are using the most resources? All you have to do is install the free, open source…

SQL Server installation wizard

Should you run SSAS/SSIS/SSRS on the SQL Server?

February 14, 2019

Architecture, Configuration Settings

When you’re building a new SQL Server, you’re going to see a few intriguing checkboxes during setup. It’s all free, right? Check everything! The services are all free, right? You can just check the boxes for Machine Learning Services, R, Python, Data Quality Services, PolyBase, Integration Services, Analysis Services, and Reporting Services – it’s not…

Brent Ozar in a tin foil hat

What Queries Does Microsoft’s Telemetry Service Run On Your SQL Server?

February 7, 2019

I was working in my lab and I was having some odd blocking waits that I wasn’t expecting. I started firing up sp_WhoIsActive to see what queries were running, and I got a rather odd surprise: sp_WhoIsActivelyRunningTelemetryQueries (click to see full size) Ah-ha, the telemetry service, also known as SQLCEIP! Starting with SQL Server 2016,…

Free Downloads for Powerful SQL Server Management

January 22, 2019

Production Database Administration, Videos

You’re responsible for managing and troubleshooting SQL Server. Good news: you’re not alone. The SQL Server community has banded together and built a bunch of cool stuff to help you do your job easier. In a one-hour session today for the PASS DBA Fundamentals online user group (free to join, of course), I showed some off.…

SQL Server Perfmon counters that are still interesting in 2019

January 16, 2019

“Page Life Expectancy? That belongs in a museum!“ (Cross-posted from the PASS Blog.) Years ago, my first go-to tool for performance tuning was Performance Monitor: it was available everywhere, worked in all versions, and gave me a lot of useful information without paying for a monitoring tool. Since then, I’ve moved on – wait stats…

How to Log Active Queries with sp_BlitzWho

December 3, 2018

Queries are running when you’re not around. They’re wreaking havoc – maybe they’re filling up your TempDB, or causing blocking, or flushing your buffer pool out. When I wanna see what queries are running, I run sp_BlitzWho: That shows me who’s running the query, what it’s been waiting on over time, memory grants, blocking, and…

Brent getting caffeinated

How to Troubleshoot Blocking and Deadlocking with Scripts and Tools

November 28, 2018

Deadlocks, Monitoring, sp_BlitzLock

When you need to find which queries are blocking other queries, your decision comes down to when the blocking happened. Is it happening now, recently, or coming up soon? During a live emergency, start with sp_WhoIsActive. Adam Machanic’s excellent free sp_WhoIsActive replaces Activity Monitor, sp_who, and sp_who2, and it’s way more powerful. The documentation is extensive –…

Brent Ozar reading

A Lot of Your SQL Servers Are Unsupported.

November 21, 2018

Production Database Administration, SQL ConstantCare

I’m almost afraid to look into the SQL ConstantCare® client base to see the answer to this, but let’s put on a pair of rubber gloves and go find out. SQL Server 2016: <1% out of support. I LOVE YOU PEOPLE. However, you’ve had the luxury of time here: SP1 came out in November 2016,…

Brent Ozar reading

6 DBA Lessons I Wish Someone Would Have Taught Me Earlier

September 21, 2018

Production Database Administration

I was talking to a DBA friend of mine, reminiscing about some of the hard lessons we learned early on in our career. The more we talked, the more we realized that there should probably be a one-page cheat-sheet that you’re required to read before you open SQL Server Management Studio. 1. The name of…

How to Check Performance on a New SQL Server

August 3, 2018

Processes and Practices, Production Database Administration

So you just built a brand new SQL Server, and before you go live, you wanna check to see if it’s going to perform as well as your existing server. The easy way: test your maintenance jobs I’m just asking for the chance to test it, that’s all It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3:…

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