February 24, 2016 at 12:50 pm
Hi,
it was fun to build home lab for exam 70-462, to test clustering and high availability
I was using my laptop with 16 GB RAM and SSD 150 GB drive to build domain with 5 servers.
when I had technical job interview for my current SQL DBA contact, 70% of questions to my surprise were not related to SQL server directly,
but to what I would call "Around SQL" questions ...What technologies I used/familiar with...
1.did I worked with high availability when VM image cloned in real time or using snapshots?
2.what would I use to clone VM with SQL server to another VM?
3.what tools I use to monitor SQL server to get realistic performance counters for SQL system running on VM?
4.how good is my PowerShell skills ?
5.what I know about Kerberos?
6.how good is my Linux skills?
In most of organizations (banks) I used to work, you learn those staff standing behind system administrator, while he is trying to create/backup VM or get some "perfmon"
counters from host running 70 SQL VM or restore image from tape
I would like to get deeper knowledge of system administration and preferably build home or online lab including
different type of operations system and test interaction of SQL server and other RDMS and NO SQL
also I realized that my knowledge of networking if far behind of DBA skills
What I want to test in particular
1. Build a Private Cloud with Windows Server & System Center 2012-16
2. Microsoft Azure Stack
3. interactions between SQL server - Hadoop (hive)/HDInsight - MongoDB - other NOSQL
4. Disaster scenarios
I can allocate $$$ for home lab or pay for online lab access
Browsing Google for few days did not provide me with clear answer on what hardware/ online resources I can use for my needs.(most of info I found is too old, since posting dated 2012-2014)
February 24, 2016 at 1:05 pm
Consider spinning up Azure VMs for your test lab machines. They're not all that expensive, probably cheaper in the long run than buying hardware from home, and if you shut them down while not in use they don't cost anything over that time.
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
February 25, 2016 at 4:11 am
I agree with Gail, doing this stuff in Azure is the way to go. You're going to see more and more people in a hybrid environment anyway, might as well start working that way.
"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
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