DBA Regular Works

  • Hi,

    I need to know the most important regular works that each DBA should perform on SQL Servers to prevent performance problems, etc.

  • peace2007 (2/14/2009)


    I need to know the most important regular works that each DBA should perform on SQL Servers to prevent performance problems, etc.

    The major part is Query Tuning

    I would say the good old friend Indexes, make sure you have proper indexes.

    Rebuilding and Reorganizing indexes according to fragmentation levels

    Maintain good locking strategy between resources

    Good Physical Database design( maintaining proper PK-FK relationships)

  • peace2007 (2/14/2009)


    Hi,

    I need to know the most important regular works that each DBA should perform on SQL Servers to prevent performance problems, etc.

    Define "performance problems", seriously.

    First of all you have to know when a complaint really means there is any performance issues for that to happen you have to work professionaly and:

    1- Set a performance baseline for your most important processes meaning, you have to know how long they take.

    2- Have a SLA with users clearly specifying what is Good, Tolerable and Bad.

    3- Over time create a library of execution plans for your most critical queries.

    Once you are in that position check every single complaint you get with your Baseline to determine if this is an issue or just a nonsense complaint, if you find out there is an issue check it out with your SLA to prioritize it then put hands to work on it. Hopefully at this time you can check current execution plan against your library and see what has changed.

    If you don't do it this way you will keep running around not knowing what is important and what is not... like a headless chicken; sad, isn't it?

    _____________________________________
    Pablo (Paul) Berzukov

    Author of Understanding Database Administration available at Amazon and other bookstores.

    Disclaimer: Advice is provided to the best of my knowledge but no implicit or explicit warranties are provided. Since the advisor explicitly encourages testing any and all suggestions on a test non-production environment advisor should not held liable or responsible for any actions taken based on the given advice.
  • Thanks all for the comments 🙂

    Maintain good locking strategy between resources

    Good Physical Database design( maintaining proper PK-FK relationships)

    Could you please explain how I can perform that?

    for maintaining proper PK-FK relationships I would create diagrams and just see if there's proper relationship defined according to the cardinality of the relationships but semantically, I cannot check that cause I'm not developing applications and I don't know the internal structure of applications.

  • 1- Set a performance baseline for your most important processes meaning, you have to know how long they take.

    How can I do that?

  • peace2007 (2/14/2009)


    1- Set a performance baseline for your most important processes meaning, you have to know how long they take.

    How can I do that?

    Here is how.

    Conduct a poll with business and find out the processes that concern business the most, you are gonna find out there are no more than 10 or 20 of them.

    For each one of them document minimu, maximum and average elapsed time; sit down with business and get an agreement about what's bad, tolerable and good -you would reuse this information to set your SLA.

    Identify the most expensive queries in each process, document elapsed time and take a Execution Plan. This is IT information only, not to be shared wiith business.

    The document indentifying the top business concerns including elapsed times, SLA agreement and Execution Plan of most expensive queries is your baseline.

    Each time somebody complains about one of those processes you go back and compare current performance against your baseline, that would tell you if user has a valid or non-sense complain, how bad is it and would also help you to find out what has changed.

    Do you get the idea?

    _____________________________________
    Pablo (Paul) Berzukov

    Author of Understanding Database Administration available at Amazon and other bookstores.

    Disclaimer: Advice is provided to the best of my knowledge but no implicit or explicit warranties are provided. Since the advisor explicitly encourages testing any and all suggestions on a test non-production environment advisor should not held liable or responsible for any actions taken based on the given advice.
  • yeah got it

    Thank you paul 🙂

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