Production DBA
T-SQL Tuesday: Why Do You Need DBA Skills?
This month's T-SQL Tuesday topic asks why you need DBA skills.
I say you probably don't.
Category: Production Database Administration
Performance Tuning
Using SQL Server Without Monitoring Software is Like Overdriving Your Headlights
The strength of your car's headlights, the speed of your reactions, and the power of your brakes determine how fast you can drive safely at night. Likewise, in SQL Server, we need to see down the road before disaster strikes, and react as quickly as possible.
Production DBA
Stop Shrinking Your Database Files. Seriously. Now.
I had sworn to myself that if I saw one more helpful article about how to shrink your SQL Server database files with DBCC SHRINKFILE or how to back up your log with TRUNCATE_ONLY, I was going to write a rant about it.
SQL Server Magazine just tweeted about their latest article, a reader-submitted solution on how to shrink your database files with ease.
Performance Tuning
The Ozar Family Tradition of Performance Monitoring
When my Grandpa Ozar wanted to find out if his 10 megabyte 5.25" hard drive was responding fast enough to handle his database loads, he monitored the Perfmon counter Physical Disk: Disk Queue Length. Things have changed since Grandpa's time, though, and now it's time to learn a new performance tuning trick - SQL Server waits.
Production DBA
SQL Server Inventory Checklist
Richard Jones, a DBA in the UK, asked in with a question, and rather than giving my own opinion, I thought it'd be better to ask it here to get everybody's opinion in the comments: The DB team that I am a member of are about to take control of a number of SQL Server…
SQL Server Perfmon (Performance Monitor) Best Practices
Database administrators need to know each SQL Server's weakest link so we know where to focus their hardware budgets and time. On any given server, we need to know what the slowest component is, and where it'll pay off to invest hours and dollars. This is performance tuning, and the first place to start is by using Performance Monitor.
