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Production Database Administration

DBA Training Plan 15: What’s Your SQL Server Waiting On?

Last Updated August 30, 2019

DBA Training Plan, Wait Stats

You’re here, dear reader, because you weren’t “classically trained” as a database administrator. You didn’t graduate from the University of Sciencing Computerses with a Master’s of Transactional Processing. You probably got your start as a developer or sysadmin, and gradually fumbled your way here. You’re used to monitoring stuff from the OUTSIDE using things like…

It's a trick question.

DBA Training Plan 14: POP QUIZ!

Last Updated August 28, 2019

DBA Training Plan

AH-HA! You didn’t know there would be one of these, did you, hotshot? You’ve been reading along in the series, just smiling and nodding, pretending you’re keeping up, but not really doing the homework. BUSTED! Put your books away and get your pencils out. Backup & Recovery Questions: How many production SQL Servers do you…

Brent getting caffeinated

DBA Training Plan 13: Why Do Cached Plans Go Bad?

Last Updated September 5, 2019

DBA Training Plan, Execution Plans

It’s a little bit of a trick question: what could make a good query plan turn bad? In the last episode, we used sp_BlitzCache to spot the most resource-intensive, longest-running query plans in your server’s cache. Go run those queries again, right now, and I bet you’re going to see plans in the cache that…

DBA Training Plan 12: What Query Plans Are In Cache?

Last Updated August 11, 2019

DBA Training Plan, Execution Plans, sp_BlitzCache

In the last episode, while talking about the basics of executing queries, I said that SQL Server caches execution plans in memory, reusing them whenever the same query gets executed again. I’ve also talked about the dynamic management views (DMVs) that let you query what’s in SQL Server’s memory. Let’s put those two things together…

Plan Properties

DBA Training Plan 11: The Basics of Executing a Query

Last Updated August 15, 2019

DBA Training Plan, Execution Plans

Up til now in the DBA Training Plan, we’ve been taking inventory of our servers, making sure the data’s well-protected, and understanding the basics of how the data’s stored in indexes inside those data files. Now, let’s start looking at performance, and let’s start by zooming really far out to think about how SQL Server…

Defrag

DBA Training Plan 10: Managing Index Fragmentation

Last Updated May 7, 2020

DBA Training Plan, Index Maintenance

In the last episode, we looked at your index designs with the output of sp_BlitzIndex. You might have gotten a little overwhelmed what with all the different warnings (and all the learning resources!) You might have thought, “Is there an easier way?” “Is there a way I can just run a job, and have something…

DBA Training Plan 9: My 3 Index Guidelines

Last Updated August 15, 2019

DBA Training Plan, Indexing

In our last episode, we used sp_BlitzIndex @Mode = 2 to get to know the contents of our database, sorted our indexes from biggest to smallest, and started asking questions about leftover backup tables that we probably didn’t need to keep around anymore. Now that you’ve taken out the trash, let’s have a closer look…

DBA Training Plan 8: What’s Inside Your Own Databases

Last Updated August 13, 2019

DBA Training Plan, Indexing

In the last episode of the DBA Training Plan, we talked about what’s inside the MDF file: a series of pages that store a database’s tables. Now, it’s time to check out the contents of YOUR database to understand what’s using the most space, what’s getting used the most often, and what you might be…

Brent Ozar reading

DBA Training Plan 7: How SQL Server Stores Stuff in MDF Files

Last Updated August 13, 2019

DBA Training Plan, Indexing

So far in the DBA Training Plan, we’ve been working hard to make sure the contents of our MDF files are backed up, corruption-free, and secured. Now, uh…what’s actually inside them? Inside each of your database data files (MDFs, although technically you can use any extension you want, even PDF or MP3), SQL Server stores…

DBA Training Plan 6: How to Monitor Drive Space

Last Updated August 13, 2019

DBA Training Plan, Monitoring

Don’t. It’s not your job. No, seriously, hang on a second. I’m not saying that you should ever say things like “It’s not my job,” but I do want you to understand when you should avoid reinventing the wheel. Your Windows administrators should be monitoring every Windows server you have, making sure it doesn’t run…

DBA Training Plan 5: Knowing Who Has Access

Last Updated August 13, 2019

DBA Training Plan

Who can get you fired? Run our free sp_Blitz stored procedure on one of your production servers and pay particular attention to the Security section of the results. It lists the logins who have been granted the sysadmin or security admin roles. Don’t think of them as logins. Think of them as people who can get…

Brent Ozar reading

DBA Training Plan 4: Checking for Corruption

Last Updated August 13, 2019

CHECKDB and Corruption, DBA Training Plan

You would think that when SQL Server writes your data to disk, it’s totally safe. Forever. You would be wrong. It’s almost like there are gremlins out to get you, purposely trying to trash your data. In the really old days, it was problems with magnetic hard drives. Later, it was buggy shared storage arrays.…

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

Last Updated August 13, 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)

Last Updated August 13, 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

Last Updated July 19, 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.

Last Updated July 19, 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

Last Updated June 22, 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?

Last Updated June 9, 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

Last Updated 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

Last Updated May 29, 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…

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