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A Checklist for Learning

One of the challenges many people have is focusing their learning efforts along some path. The best way to move forward is with steady effort that guides you through steps to build knowledge or skill. However, with so much information out there on the Internet, how do you decide where you focus your efforts?

Lots of people choose a random method, but the world is full of those people, many of whom never develop strong skills. That might be fine if you are an hobby guitarist or piano player, but it's not the best way to approach your career.

Choosing what you want to learn is hard, but if you were to try and become a better Database Administrator, what do you think of this list: the ultimate checklist for Jr DBAs. This is a long list of topics in various areas, such as basic concepts, indexing, backups, security, objects, etc.

I think it's not bad, but it leaves you a lot of work to do on your own. You have to find places that explain these items, which can be a chore. If you find a link, how do you know it's good? You can't judge because, well, you don't know. You're learning here.

I wish there were more guidance in posts like this. Not necessarily more information in this post, but with links that might help someone know where to look for good information. If you know these things, then what do you think is a good source of information? Maybe on your own blog or maybe an article that taught you something. I'm sure I don't always provide background links, but I try to ensure I include links to help someone learn more.

Inside a company, I might include internal links to our policies or documentation. As an example, maybe we write down how often we think stats should be updated as a standard and why or what types of backup schedules are appropriate. This would be an easy way to help someone learn why we approach our jobs in certain ways, which is a very specific type of learning we need. Other more general learning is important and would drive these decisions.

Would you make a list like this one for yourself? If you're a junior DBA, you might find this helpful, though I'd suggest you ask others for input on where you learn about these concepts. For people looking to learn something else, such as Fabric or Snowflake, is this the type of list that would be helpful, assuming there are some links on where to learn more? Let us know today.

Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Join the debate, and respond to today's editorial on the forums

 

The Voice of the DBA Podcast

Listen to the MP3 Audio podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and Libsyn.

The Voice of the DBA podcast features music by Everyday Jones. No relation, but I stumbled on to them and really like the music.

 Featured Contents
SQLServerCentral Article

Hiring in IT and Relevance of Domain Experience

nitinbhojwani from SQLServerCentral

When choosing to hire someone, do you want experience or freshness? A few thoughts from someone that had to go through this recently.

External Article

Microsoft Fabric: Moving Dataflows Gen 2 to different workspaces

Additional Articles from SimpleTalk

Let’s see the steps needed to move a dataflow from one workspace to another. For a matter of example, let’s consider the dataflow access a lakehouse on the Dev environment. When copied to the Test environment, the new copy needs to be linked to a new dataflow in the Test environment.

Technical Article

Introducing the pre-con schedule for PASS Summit 2024

Additional Articles from PASS

The speakers and sessions have just been announced for PASS 2024! We’re delighted to share the pre-con schedule for Monday, November 4, and Tuesday, November 5, 2024. Check out the full pre-con line up and the incredible speakers taking part and secure your spot today.

Blog Post

From the SQL Server Central Blogs - Data (and Humans) At Rest

hellosqlkitty from SQLKitty

We talk a lot about data in the data world – imagine that! Sometimes, we talk about data at rest, but when do we all rest? Do we even...

Blog Post

From the SQL Server Central Blogs - Regular Expressions to Generate Disable/Drop Index Scripts

alevyinroc from FLX SQL

Earlier this year, I embarked on a bit of a project to tidy up the indexes in a sizeable database. This database has over 900 tables, and there are...

Practical Database Auditing for Microsoft SQL Server and Azure SQL

Practical Database Auditing for Microsoft SQL Server and Azure SQL: Troubleshooting, Regulatory Compliance, and Governance

Site Owners from SQLServerCentral

Know how to track changes and key events in your SQL Server databases in support of application troubleshooting, regulatory compliance, and governance. This book shows how to use key features in SQL Server ,such as SQL Server Audit and Extended Events, to track schema changes, permission changes, and changes to your data. You’ll even learn how to track queries run against specific tables in a database. ss

 

 Question of the Day

Today's question (by Steve Jones - SSC Editor):

 

Upgrading Old Instance to SQL Server 2022

I am trying to update my database servers to SQL Server 2022. I have a very mixed estate, some of which are older instances. What is the earliest version of SQL Server that I can perform an in-place upgrade from to SQL Server 2022?

Think you know the answer? Click here, and find out if you are right.

 

 

 Yesterday's Question of the Day (by Steve Jones - SSC Editor)

Synapse Analytics History II

Before Synapse Analytics was a service in Azure, what was the last name of the on-premises data warehousing appliance from Microsoft?

Answer: APS

Explanation: The last name before Azure SQL Data Warehouse was released in the cloud was the APS (Analytics Platform System). Ref: What's the difference between Azure Synapse (formerly SQL DW) and Azure Synapse Analytics Workspace - https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/azure-synapse-analytics-blog/what-s-the-difference-between-azure-synapse-formerly-sql-dw-and/ba-p/3597772

Discuss this question and answer on the forums

 

 

 

Database Pros Who Need Your Help

Here's a few of the new posts today on the forums. To see more, visit the forums.


SQL Server 2017 - Administration
Searching for the Assumed Full Backup - I have this maintenance plan with differential backup and maintenance clean-up task in it. The plan runs once daily, and the clean-up task is deleting backup files older than 1 week. There is no other full backup plan or subplan there in SSMS. I ran the following script day before yesterday, yesterday and today to […]
SQL Server 2016 - Development and T-SQL
Can you pass an undeclared variable to a Stored Procedure - If I have a SP that calls another/different SP can I pass to that second SP a variable that has not been declared within the 1st SP and which was not passed to the 1st SP like the below?  I am walking through some code in a SP and found that it had a variable […]
SQL Server 2019 - Administration
Windows 11 & sudden SSMS sorting nuisance - When I was still in Windows 10, I'd open up SSMS (version 18) and go to Object Explorer Details, where I would see the folders System Databases and Database Snapshots up at top and all the individual database names listed in alphabetically order (unless I sorted otherwise). Now that I've upgraded to Windows 11, something […]
HADR SYNC COMMIT / deadlock rebuild index - Hi, I have some interesting issue. Server1 2024-08-09 02:59:25- start session 234 with UPDATE STATISTICS on Table1 WA_sys_xxxx stat 2024-08-09 03:00:08 - start session 800  - with ALTER INDEX on Table1 with Index1 2024-08-09 03:00:25 - deadlock session 800 like victim and session 527, which is application with some MERGE 2024-08-09 03:04:22 - first record […]
Ping a sqlinstance - How do I (ping/check if up and running) a sqlinstance  from t-sql ?  
SQL Server 2019 - Development
can my phone run ssms inside our firewall? - Hi my phone is now upgraded to allow teams , outlook etc using my work account.   Its a portal more or less. Is there a way to leverage my new portal to run ssms from my phone so i can check on the status of a couple of jobs rather than carrying my pc around […]
what have people done for ssrs params needing very precise start and end times - Hi we run 2019 standard.  one of our mfg locations requires somewhat precise start and end param times along with the start and end dates controlling how an ssrs report is filtered. our main user doesnt like the idea of them typing hh.mm.ss.nnn next to the date showing when they pick a date from the […]
Integration Services
Destination Table - Condition Amount 0 - I need your assistance with an ETL process that runs every six months. Currently, we are in Calendar Year/FY 2025, which started in July 2024. The issue is with the "Condition Amount" for FY 2025. Data comes through correctly until the "Insert Data Into Task" step (please see the attached screenshot). However, it appears that […]
Destination Table - Condition Amount 0 - I need your assistance with an ETL process that runs every six months. Currently, we are in Calendar Year/FY 2025, which started in July 2024. The issue is with the "Condition Amount" for FY 2025. Data comes through correctly until the "Insert Data Into Task" step (please see the attached screenshot). However, it appears that […]
Destination Table - Condition Amount 0 - I need your assistance with an ETL process that runs every six months. Currently, we are in Calendar Year/FY 2025, which started in July 2024. The issue is with the "Condition Amount" for FY 2025. Data comes through correctly until the "Insert Data Into Task" step (please see the attached screenshot). However, it appears that […]
Design Ideas and Questions
Why is it a good idea to not restore a production database to test? - (I looked over all the forums here on SSC and this one seemed the best for my question. If you think I'm wrong, I'm sorry I posted my question here.) For years I've read here and elsewhere that it is not a good idea to restore a production database to its equivalent test database. I've […]
SQL Server 2022 - Administration
Collation Change - Any recommendations on changing the collation if DB ? There is dependent objects so simple alter won't work. Also DB to big to generate script with schema and dats
In primary alwayson replica index maintenance plan need tobe prepare fordowntime - Dear all, I have a 3.5 tb primary always on database with 2 secondary replica one is sync and dr is async In primary always on replica index maintenance plan need to be prepare for downtime can any one mention the order for the plan and its steps to follow Do we need to suspend […]
OLA's Maintenance scripts - should I be reorganizing? - Hi These are my current params for nightly maintenance: USE MASTER EXECUTE dbo.IndexOptimize @Databases = 'MY USER DB', @FragmentationLow = NULL, @FragmentationMedium = 'INDEX_REBUILD_ONLINE', @FragmentationHigh = 'INDEX_REBUILD_ONLINE', @FragmentationLevel1 = 25, @FragmentationLevel2 = 50, @SortInTempdb = 'Y', @MaxDOP = 2 I have removed 'REORGANIZE' as per Jeff's thread here: https://www.sqlservercentral.com/forums/topic/review-ola-hallengren-indexoptimize-parameters Am I correct in removing the […]
SQL Server 2022 - Development
Query timeout question - I am debugging (sort of) a problematic query, that gives a timeout error (30 seconds) in our company application. I've captured the query + parameters using Extended Events and when I run the exact same query with the same parameters in SSMS, it takes about 1 second. Anyone got any ideas what's happening here?
 

 

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