Beginning Administration

  • A DBA tale

    Bob walked into his new office with overwhelming confidence as the exiting DBA finished packing his belongings. As Bob walked into the room, the DBA stopped a moment, walked to his desk, took out three envelopes and handed them to Bob.The exiting guy told Bob not to open them, as they would only be effective if they were opened at the right time. Bob asked when that would be, and the exiting DBA said that, when a situation came up where you don't know what to do, open #1 before you walk in to talk to the boss.

    Bob got busy and got into the work, handled everything that came his way until one day, he was asked to get some data from a backup. Bob found out that his backups were failing. Bob remembered the envelopes, tore open #1 which contained a slip of paper which read "Blame it on the last DBA". Bob walked into the office wondering what to say and thought of how easily it could have been avoided. He checked the SQL Mail setup, even tested it! How was he to know that MIS would change something in the mail setup? Of course, to blame them would incur the wrath of the MIS department, and being a newbie, he didn't want to do that, so he blindly took the advice in the envelope. His boss agreed that it was the fault of the previous DBA, but told Bob that all SQL Server issues were his problem from now on. Bob learned from his mistake and set up SQL Mail to send him email upon success AND failure of any job. This way, if he didn't receive an email, he'd know there was a problem.

     

    Two weeks went by, and Bob was a legend in his own mind. He loved the new backup strategy he'd implemented. It was so sleek and flexible, there was no way he'd lose data. Then, it was put to the test, and the recovery operation failed. He'd had successful emails regarding his backups and couldn't understand how this could happen. Was it the drive or the server??? He had no idea why he couldn't restore from his backups. Then he remembered the envelopes. Tearing open the second one, it said, simply "Blame the hardware." This was a great revelation to Bob. He'd never tested his recovery plan from start to finish, and never restored a backup in test before going live. Bob went to his boss and told him it was the hardware. The boss agreed, but pointed out that the company had just lost 48 hours worth of work. Bob left, with his tail between his legs. Bob learned that it's important to test your recovery plan.

    He was just about to turn in his resignation when he realized he had another envelope. It couldn't possibly help him feel better about the hole he'd dug for himself, but what had he to lose? Bob opened the last envelope, read the note, and smiled. "Create 3 envelopes, label them #1, #2, #3, and create notes that say "Blame it on the last DBA", "Blame the hardware.", and in the third envelope place this note, and start looking for a new job. You're the only one to blame."

  • I'M NEW TO THIS...

    HAVE MSACCESS DATABASE SPLIT INTO DATABASE AND DATABASE_BE. GETTING TOO BIG FOR ACCESS. WANT TO PUT THE BACK END INTO SQL SERVER AND USE THE FRONT END TO MANIPULATE, ETC.

    HOW DO I GET THE BACK END INTO SQL SERVER?

    THANKS =)

  • Pretty easy to DTS the data into your SQL Server and link to it through Access (ODBC).

  • Better do it with a copy first when you have plenty of free time. Things are about to get real different.


    We have met the enemy and he is us.

  • I would like to see some sample MS SQL server standards documentation writing guides or similar...Any guidance in that area would be idea...Also, product review to assist the newbie in different dB task would be awesome...like telling newbies about SQL Compare, etc...

    Thanks,

    Christine


    Aurora

  • All thats here is very useful hope u keep updating this....

  • Thanks for all the information.  It sure is very helpful to me.

    I just start my job as SQL developer in a small company and I find out they don't have a DBA.  My boss said the company was too small and could not afford a full time DBA so he expected all developers to learn to be a DBA.  Even though I found it was very overwhelming at first to be a developer and DBA at the same time, now I find it very exciting.  There is so much to learn and there is not a boring moment at work.

  • THE RESPONSIBILITY OF DBA IS LARGE.

    YOU CAN BUY SOME GOOD BOOKS TO START YOUR Journey.

    Care fully read all the aspects?

     

     

  • Hi,

    Kindly can you help me for the follownig question...

    Whenever a user inserts a record into database(sqlserver), i want to write one trigger such that it fires on a particular date(suppose on sunday) and all the records which have been inserted from monday to saturday should be updated to the server on sunday when the trigger fires.

    Please suggest me

    Thanks in advance

    Best Regards

     

     

  • Dumb  Question:  Can someone direct me to something that tells me how to set up Windows XP to work with SQL.  When I click on Query, up junps a box wanting a server name, etc.  Where do I get that?

  • I'm only a beginner myself, but I think you would want to set this up with a Job rather than with a Trigger. Make a stored procedure that does what you want, and then set the job to run that stored procedure each Sunday. Someone please correct me if this is completely in error.
     
    em
  • I'd like to see a dummy's guide to assigning permissions to a (new) view for a new user. In particular, defining the logon, creating a group, adding needed permissions for tables/views in other dababases referenced by the view.

    I look forward to your beginning administrators material.

  • Newbie here, to SQL Server 2000 and the forum.

    Prior post glitched/vanished somehow.

    short version, this time:

    SQL 2000.80.2039.0

    Win2K3ServerSP1

    SQL Enterprise Manager "Properties" on a db says that

    transactionlogs for the db are writing to my D: drive,

    but .TRN files (BIG ones!) keep appearing on my C: drive.

    How to fix?

    MANY Thanks!

    - S.

  • See "PERMISSIONS function" topic in BOL.

    And topics linked from there.

    _____________
    Code for TallyGenerator

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