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DBA for a large DBs environment

  • July 6, 2004 at 1:39 pm

    #84962

    Hello All,

    I would like to hear any thoughts, ideas, comments, recommendation etc...

    Our current DBA of a large Db environment is about to leave us on a short notice, so I will fill his shoes starting next few days.

    I was working as a Prod/Development DBA for a number of years, so I pretty much familiar with a daily routine.

    The DBs I was taking care of were mostly up to 15 Gb, maximum.

    So, I guess, my question is: what do I need to keep in mind for a large DB(s) - over 100 GB.

    TIA

  • July 6, 2004 at 5:55 pm

    #513539

    I'm sure other who have VLDB's will add to my list!

    (A) Maintenance! For VLDB's, you will have to find a window of opportunity to perform Database Maintenance as it will take longer than smaller Databases.

    (B) Restores! It takes longer to restore a VLDB's

    (C) Disk Space! Make sure you have enough Disk Space for the VLDB to grow.

    If I have some more tips I'll add them in due time!

    Kindest Regards,

  • July 6, 2004 at 10:24 pm

    #513560

    To add a little to MrSQL's list:

    (A) Maintenance!    Not only will everything take longer, but everything will be more critical.  You need to get in there and quickly understand how he's identifying indexes to defrag, reindex, etc.  You need to realize how these affect the log sizes, which involves the disk space issue that MrSQL pointed out. 

    (B) Understand the hardware.  How are the databases laid out to take advantage of the hardware?  Are you striping backups, doing disk replication, taking snaps?  Are databases divided into filegroups?  If so, you need to know how so you keep up whatever he put in place. 

    (C)  Monitor very proactively.  One little block on a big database can bring down a whole enterprise.  We run 300-400 t/sec with peaks well over 1000.  If you have a block, you get a couple hundred ticked off people backed up within seconds.  You need to feel the system and have monitoring in place to let you be effective.

    I'm sure more people will add. 

    Derrick Leggett
    Mean Old DBA
    When life gives you a lemon, fire the DBA.

  • July 7, 2004 at 8:01 am

    #513651

    Hi Derrick,

    Thanks for your answers.

    While I hope that it will be more comments, let me ask you the following:

    When/what is the best time to run update statistics, defrag, reindex commands.

    TIA

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