December 24, 2013 at 4:18 pm
Hi All,
I just became a new DBA from being an accountant for almost 3 years 😎 and I am wondering if someone can help me out. I am given a task to log into different instances and go through some of the settings we should have. So far this is what I have found in most of the instances we have.
1. Everything is on VM
2. No maintenance plan
3. Memory is set to default
4. Indexes on tables and the tables are pretty small in size.
5. Recovery Model is set to Simple for Prod.
6. Each instance has only 1 DB plus they are also running reporting services which I don't think they use.
7. Using 3rd party for backup.
8. Almost all the server settings are set to default.
9. Shrinking the databases.
This is so far what I have. I know its a long list but please whoever replies to this post, just answer it the best way you can and guide me on what can be done to make our environment better. Have a great Holiday!
"He who learns for the sake of haughtiness, dies ignorant. He who learns only to talk, rather than to act, dies a hyprocite. He who learns for the mere sake of debating, dies irreligious. He who learns only to accumulate wealth, dies an atheist. And he who learns for the sake of action, dies a mystic."[/i]
December 25, 2013 at 7:12 pm
5. Simple means you could lose all the data between each full backup. So if you take a backup once per day, and you have a disaster right before the backup, you will lose everything back to the previous backup. Most production databases are in FULL recovery, with transaction log backups every 15 minutes or so, and a full backup nightly (many options depending on each situation).
Read about "recovery models" to get the details, and decide what your company needs for disaster recovery options.
7. Do you mean a 3rd party, such as a consultant manages your backups, or that you do backups, but use a 3rd party tool such as Redgate or Idera ?
9. Shrinking is usually a bad idea (hurts performance by fragmenting data) , unless you have an urgent need to recover space.
Plenty of detail on these topics if you search. Read up, then come back with specific questions.
December 26, 2013 at 5:56 am
Welcome to the Accidental DBA club, otherwise known as the "How on God's Green Earth Did I Wind Up Here?" club. As you are no doubt discovering, it can feel pretty overwhelming, but it's doable. Just take one bite of the elephant at a time.
For starters, there's a nifty section of free ebooks (click the "Books" link on the left) around here. The two I've found most helpful are Sql Server Backup and Restore and Sql Server Tacklebox. At minimum you'll learn how to evaluate and improve your backup/restore strategy and Tacklebox has some excellent scripts available to get a handle on exactly what you're dealing with.
____________
Just my $0.02 from over here in the cheap seats of the peanut gallery - please adjust for inflation and/or your local currency.
December 26, 2013 at 8:56 am
An excellent article for you, posted a few years ago, but it still applies today!
Viewing 4 posts - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply