If you had time what would do to improve your databases/database servers?

  • A bit of a hypothetical, but if you worked for a large company that had tons of databases and database servers, but you had a good team of DBA's, what types of maintenance activities/scripts would you like see implemented in your environment?

    I am not talking Index Maintenance, backups, etc...

    What are some database activities that you wish you had time to implement?

    Thank You

  • I would hire me to come in and give your systems/servers/apps/processes a review!! I would follow-up with some mentoring too! 😀

    Best,
    Kevin G. Boles
    SQL Server Consultant
    SQL MVP 2007-2012
    TheSQLGuru on googles mail service

  • Thanks for the reply Kevin. We have a good team where I work and the Architect we work with, is spot on with everything. I am asking this question as our databases are working really well. We have a large post install script that we have to take care of a lot of maintenance activities and alerts. I am just curious of what others do or wish they could do.

  • For most out there the issue is they don't know what they don't know. I see the same suboptimal stuff (in ALL respects - config, mx, design, architecture, schema, code, DLM/ALM, etc, etc) at essentially every client I visit, regardless of the size. Fortune 100 or Mom-and-Pop, it doesn't matter.

    Best,
    Kevin G. Boles
    SQL Server Consultant
    SQL MVP 2007-2012
    TheSQLGuru on googles mail service

  • I think I would ask myself what I'm missing. I'm inclined to agree with Kevin - there's stuff out there that's suboptimal. When I found those issue and got them taken care of, I would do more monitoring of the worst queries that were executed and look for ways to fix them.

  • yep better monitoring for performance, and better monitoring for sub optimal best practices;

    an in your face gui and chart for things that are slow gives you motivation to fix it, mores o than an on demand query.

    same for best practices ; creating a gui for some of the things that sp_blitz checks for, for example.

    Lowell


    --help us help you! If you post a question, make sure you include a CREATE TABLE... statement and INSERT INTO... statement into that table to give the volunteers here representative data. with your description of the problem, we can provide a tested, verifiable solution to your question! asking the question the right way gets you a tested answer the fastest way possible!

  • Security without a doubt. Starting with TDE to encrypt the data at rest and getting ready to utilise Always Encrypted for the sensitive data. Auditing SQL account permissions, monitoring failed logins... I can probably think of more worthwhile stuff given the time.

  • Monitoring and performance metrics and tuning. Nothing is ever really running fast enough.

    "The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
    - Theodore Roosevelt

    Author of:
    SQL Server Execution Plans
    SQL Server Query Performance Tuning

  • Pro-active performance monitoring. Not 'what's slow right now', but rather trends and historical data. What was procedure x performing like last week compared with today. Wait stats and IO stats as well, probably also perfmon counters

    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

    We walk in the dark places no others will enter
    We stand on the bridge and no one may pass

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