September 11, 2009 at 10:08 am
We backup the Sql servers around 5pm. We image them later that night. On Monday nights we apply Windows Updates -- after 7pm because outside users need access ot the server before then. Tuesday nights a non-sql (Applicaiton.exe) process accesses the database around 8:30pm. It's scheduled using the schedule on another server -- not our sql box. Later that night I run a Nightly maintenance job. Eventually, someone says they need to run another process using on sql server and needs to know what times are available. After the usual blank stare ..... we start running around to find tha answer(s). .
What software do you use\recommend to get a handle on the jobs processes running on your server? It would need to be available to the Network group as well as (view only) to our developers.
TIA,
Barkingdog
September 11, 2009 at 10:33 am
sqlsentry.
October 1, 2009 at 6:07 pm
We reviewed several products and in the end choose Active Batch http://www.advsyscon.com/
more to do with some of the non-SQL related jobs we needed to manage.
We manage all of our backups (full, log) with restart failover on the ones we require. We have several EMC replications that kick off ETL jobs. We've automated our on demand developer/tester requested copies/restore. Recently tied application nightly jobs as dependencies for one of the replication jobs - but found out not as tightly tied as I would like. Too many spider webs in our environment so have been forced to ask the business if we can run the app jobs early one night a month (month end). Can't make it a defined schedule due to the changing date of month end.
About the only thing in the version we are running in right now 6.x is that for some reason we can't call a SSIS package that is stored in MSDB - the work around was to define a job with those settings and call the job. I guess the other disappointing thing is the network guys could automate a lot more of thier items if they wanted.
In the end though you need to ensure the vendor can prove that they can solve all of your problems. (e.g. how does it call the image process) If possible ask for a proof of concept. They all can be a bit of a learning curve to implement the best practices/processes. We struggled as the original DBA that was trained was let go with little implemented. We had another DBA that did a lot of the original jobs after that (backups, replication) and we were starting to add more when he and one other DBA left. Leaving two of us to manage everything including what seemed like nightly job failures. It took some time but eventually we actually got most of our nights/weekends back. Good luck.
October 1, 2009 at 6:51 pm
I will investigate both tools.
Thanks for your help.
barkingdog
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