May 19, 2009 at 3:40 am
dear experts,
I have a very big problem.
Our DBA let suddenly and his part of job is now my concern. I have to mention that I am not DBA nor I have ever administer some kind of base.
So i need any documentation I can get.
I made a list of tasks I should probably pay attention of but I dont have any literature for that.
Here is the list:
- physical file fragmentation
- DB i log file management
- DB maintenance i monitoring
- DB i log file protection
- Data corruption detection
- tempdb maintenance
- msdb maintenance
- index maintenance
- statistic maintenance.
I wonder is it enough for some kind of administration. Any help, advise or literature would be a great deal for me.
Thanx in advance
May 19, 2009 at 6:03 am
ip2host (5/19/2009)
dear experts,I have a very big problem.
Our DBA let suddenly and his part of job is now my concern. I have to mention that I am not DBA nor I have ever administer some kind of base.
So i need any documentation I can get.
I made a list of tasks I should probably pay attention of but I dont have any literature for that.
Here is the list:
- physical file fragmentation
- DB i log file management
- DB maintenance i monitoring
- DB i log file protection
- Data corruption detection
- tempdb maintenance
- msdb maintenance
- index maintenance
- statistic maintenance.
I wonder is it enough for some kind of administration. Any help, advise or literature would be a great deal for me.
Thanx in advance
Wowwww.. you are lucky aren't you?:-D
Welcome to the world of DBA's, I am afraid you might lose interese in your current job cos Database administration is fun and addiction 🙂
Don't forget Security, System DB's maintenance, Performance tuning...
May 19, 2009 at 6:18 am
First of all, welcome aboard !!
I think you should start with some basic admin book, like the one you get from the official training, to get used to some concepts. In the meantime, take a look at the articles published here because it'll give you some specific tips about specific tasks within SQL.
Also take a look at the scripts, it'll make your life easy while your learning...
cheers
Alejandro Pelc
May 19, 2009 at 7:05 am
The best recommendation that I can give you is this:
If you are unsure, ask a question on the forums before you try something out on one of your servers or databases.
This might seem like funny advise, but there are a lot of posts on this and other forums where a person in your position did something really bad like delete a transaction log file because it was to big, and the end result is never really a good thing when that happens.
The first thing I would focus on as someone new to SQL Server is Backup/Restore. Do you have regularly scheduled backups of the the databases, do you know where they are, and do you know how to restore them in the event of a problem. Backups will make or break a DBA when things go wrong, there is nothing more important than having good backups, knowing where they are, and knowing how to use them to recover from disaster. This should be practiced to the point that you could do it drunk or asleep (you never know when your server might crash, and being a few drinks into the evening when it happens clouds your thought processes, so you want this kind of stuff to be second nature).
Once you have Backup/Restore under control, I would focus on Maintenance, DBCC CHECKDB should run at least bi-weekly on every one of your databases, weekly if at all possible. Indexes should be rebuilt regularly, or at least statistics should be updated weekly.
Jonathan Kehayias | Principal Consultant | MCM: SQL Server 2008
My Blog | Twitter | MVP Profile
Training | Consulting | Become a SQLskills Insider
Troubleshooting SQL Server: A Guide for Accidental DBAs[/url]
May 19, 2009 at 7:21 am
If you don't already have one, set yourself up a test box and get in the practice of trying stuff out there before applying it to a live db. I've seen a lot of seasoned DBAs skip this step and than have to scramble to "make the world right".
_____________________________________________________________________
- Nate
May 19, 2009 at 8:12 am
Jonathan Kehayias (5/19/2009)
The best recommendation that I can give you is this:If you are unsure, ask a question on the forums before you try something out on one of your servers or databases.
This should be practiced to the point that you could do it drunk or asleep!
Very sound advice, especially drunk and/or asleep. It's inevitable that the call will come at 2 or 3 AM - based on my experience anyway. Once you're satisified that Jonathan's suggestions have been met, now look at hardware. Is there enough disk so that you don't wind up out of space in the near future? Be sure to plan accordingly for database growth. Based on your database options (simple, full) are your backups appropriate to maintain the smallest possible log file? Are you meeting business needs with respect to recoverability, i.e. what is an acceptable amount of data loss to your users? Will your backups meet that expecatation? This may seem overwhelming at first but there are a bunch of things you need to get under control before the real fun begins. A solid foundation will help. Remember, besides these boards, books on line (BOL) and Google will be your best friends. Good luck.
-- You can't be late until you show up.
May 20, 2009 at 12:55 am
First of all I have to thank all of you for welcoming me.
Jonathan, I did that so called basic stuff. Scheduled my backups, everyday full, placed them on a big, secured place. I set up a test server where I can practice restore of that backups and everything that can help me doing stuff. Learned how to truncate trans log instead of deleting them.
Now the things I need is stuff and procedures how to check all that stuff that you recommend me and eventually to correct them. So basicly i need some checklist of daily, weekly and monthly procedures that i have to do in order to get any kind of reliability.
Again,
tnx to all
May 20, 2009 at 1:01 am
ip2host (5/20/2009)
Learned how to truncate trans log instead of deleting them.
That's something that you need to unlearn, I'm afraid. Transaction logs should not be truncated, they should be backed up.
Please read through this - Managing Transaction Logs[/url]
In general, this blog category (and in fact the entire blog) is well worth reading
http://sqlskills.com/BLOGS/PAUL/category/Involuntary-DBA.aspx
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability
May 20, 2009 at 2:07 am
I didnt correctly express myself.
I truncated trans logs after full backup each base and trans log.
I had to coz it reached 30gb.
May 20, 2009 at 3:52 am
Well Gail I have to send you a flowers where ever you are.
I think that blog you post the address of is prety much everything I need.
Large and overwhelming.
Now just a couple years of reading and I am there!!!!
Thanks a lot.
Of course you can expect me here every now and then.
And of course thank all the experts you helped.
May 20, 2009 at 6:56 am
ip2host (5/20/2009)
I didnt correctly express myself.I truncated trans logs after full backup each base and trans log.
Are you running BACKUP LOG ... WITH TRUNCATE_ONLY at all? If so, please read that article I linked to.
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability
May 20, 2009 at 7:05 am
what I did so far is:
scheduled full backup every day.
logs are on every hour.
I didnt know about trans log at all untill I saw that he raised to aprox. 30gb.
than I run the dbcc shrinkfile (filename, 1) and everything is ok now.
But I was concerned was that good solution so I had to ask for help.
I am reading whole that blog you posted link for and slowly beggining to realize things.
May 20, 2009 at 7:31 am
ip2host (5/20/2009)
I didnt correctly express myself.I truncated trans logs after full backup each base and trans log.
I had to coz it reached 30gb.
After you truncate the log, you MUST do a full backup immediately after otherwise you've broken your backup chain.
ip2host (5/20/2009)
what I did so far is:scheduled full backup every day.
logs are on every hour.
I didnt know about trans log at all untill I saw that he raised to aprox. 30gb.
than I run the dbcc shrinkfile (filename, 1) and everything is ok now.
Do you really want to shrink you log file to 1Mb after it hit 30Gb? The overheard that will occur when it does try and grow will impact performance. Why not put it at 2-5Gb and see what happens? You obviously have the disk to accomodate it.
-- You can't be late until you show up.
May 20, 2009 at 7:34 am
tosscrosby (5/20/2009)
ip2host (5/20/2009)
I didnt correctly express myself.I truncated trans logs after full backup each base and trans log.
I had to coz it reached 30gb.
After you truncate the log, you MUST do a full backup immediately after otherwise you've broken your backup chain.
ip2host (5/20/2009)
what I did so far is:scheduled full backup every day.
logs are on every hour.
I didnt know about trans log at all untill I saw that he raised to aprox. 30gb.
than I run the dbcc shrinkfile (filename, 1) and everything is ok now.
Do you really want to shrink you log file to 1Mb after it hit 30Gb? The overheard that will occur when it does try and grow will impact performance. Why not put it at 2-5Gb and see what happens? You obviously have the disk to accomodate it.
May 20, 2009 at 7:39 am
I didnt know that about backup after truncating.
so basicly i ruined my backup with that truncate?
ok what do you think i should do:
i work for financial institution and cant afford to lose any data.
what type of backup should you recommend?
I know it sounds funny that financial institution doesnt have a real DBA and that they rely on me nicely called involuntary DBA but that is the situation.
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