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The Voice of the DBA
 

How Do You Patch 100 Database Servers?

In most of the organizations I've worked for or consulted with, patching was always a challenge. Patching hasn't usually been given a priority and is often skipped when operations staff is busy. This has resulted in lots of un-patched, or slowly patched systems. I assume this is one reason Microsoft continues to release RTM-GDR patches because some people won't patch at all unless there are critical fixes.

I also know that much of IT management sees patching systems like patching parking lots. Needs to be done, but tomorrow, after we do other important work today.

Patching isn't easy, in fact, Allan Hirt says it was never easy, but these days we don't get the downtime over a weekend to patch, and there is a desire to patch security issues immediately because of the potential reputational (more likely) or regulatory (less likely) risks. Also, we often need to patch dozens, if not hundreds or thousands, of systems.

So is there a way that most organizations do this? It's interesting in the piece above that Allan notes that most of us have technical debt, and this debt consists of more than just code and systems. It's also people, budget, politics, and more. This is even more of an issue if you didn't write the software. Applications often limit patches or upgrades, and it can be hard enough to get applications certified on new platforms when you control everything. If you purchased something from a vendor, you might be bound by their timelines not your own.

So how do you patch a lot of systems? There are lots of ideas and potential solutions. I'm sure Allan covered some recently in his session at the PASS Data Community Summit. For me, this boils down to building part of a process, using it, evaluating it, and then rolling it out wider. This might mean I need two processes because some systems will lag behind others for various reasons. I'd probably spend a year or two slowly adding to this process and getting it better, all the while ensuring I used automation as much as humanly possible to process notifications, approvals, and actually deploy code.

Start small, experiment, test, evaluate, make changes. Always codifying things that I can. It's a method that has worked for a long time.

Steve Jones - SSC Editor

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

 
 Featured Contents
SQLServerCentral Article

How to Develop Custom T-SQL Code Snippets in Azure Data Studio

Noman072 from SQLServerCentral

Learn about code snippets and Azure Data Studio.

SQLServerCentral Article

Microsoft SQL announcements at PASS Data Community Summit 2024

Press Release from SQLServerCentral

Read a summary of the data platform announcements from Microsoft at the PASS Data Community Summit 2024 last week.

External Article

Explore Pandas in Python to Analyze and Manipulate Tabular Data

Additional Articles from MSSQLTips.com

Learn how to use Pandas an open-source library for analyzing and manipulating tabular data in Python along with several examples.

Blog Post

From the SQL Server Central Blogs - Day 2 at PASS Data Community Summit 2024

Steve Jones - SSC Editor from The Voice of the DBA

I missed blogging yesterday as I was on stage/backstage for quite a bit of the keynote. Live updates, so keep refreshing. Today I’m blogging and noting the interesting things...

Blog Post

From the SQL Server Central Blogs - AI Innovation in Microsoft Keynote

Chris Yates from The SQL Professor

I’m thrilled to be covering the Microsoft Keynote: Fuel AI Innovation with Azure Databases on Day 1 of the PASS Data Community Summit. Data is the driving force behind innovation, powering...

Admin Azure SQL Solutions

Exam Ref DP-300 Administering Microsoft Azure SQL Solutions

Site Owners from SQLServerCentral

Directfrom Microsoft, this Exam Ref is the official study guide for the new MicrosoftDP-300 Administering Microsoft Azure SQL Solutions certification exam.

 

 Question of the Day

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

 

What's the Ceiling?

What do I get as the results from this code?
SELECT CEILING (999.999), CEILING (-999.999);

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)

The Density Vector

When building statistics, there is the concept of density that refers to the duplicates in a table. How is this calculated?

Answer: 1 / (distinct rows)

Explanation: The density is 1 / (distinct rows), giving you an idea of the number of duplicate values. Ref: Statistics - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/relational-databases/statistics/statistics?view=sql-server-ver16

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
Manual Distribution Database Cleanup - Hi All. I have a reasonably straightforward transactional replication setup. I had two databases on Server a, that are replicated to server b for reporting purposes. All was going well until Halloween (yeah, I know) when one of the databases encountered file corruption. The database remained running but the backups failed, it truly was my […]
SQL Server 2016 - Development and T-SQL
SQL server help (converting rows to columns) - I am using the following sql to convert rows into columns for each pid, intdate. This works fine when f1,intdate and docdate are not changed. So with the following sample data, I get 2 rows. INSERT INTO #Data (pid,f1,mne,mneval,intdate,docdate) VALUES ('u1','11','Q1', '1','01/01/2000','01/01/2000 10:30'), ('u1','11','Q2', 'Y','01/01/2000','01/01/2000 10:30'), ('u1','11','Q3', 'N','01/01/2000','01/01/2000 10:30'), ('u1','11','Q4', '2','01/01/2000','01/01/2000 10:30'), ('u1','11','Q5', '3','01/01/2000','01/01/2000 10:30'), […]
SQL Server 2012 - T-SQL
Fill in missing hours for each VisitID during the day - create table #T ( VisitID varchar(30), ER_Date date, HR int ) insert into #T(VisitID, ER_Date, HR) values('F3-B20241031192313800','11/1/2024',0) insert into #T(VisitID, ER_Date, HR) values('F2-B20241031155610449','11/1/2024',0) insert into #T(VisitID, ER_Date, HR) values('F3-B20241031181839474','11/1/2024',0) insert into #T(VisitID, ER_Date, HR) values('F2-B20241031183744823','11/1/2024',0) insert into #T(VisitID, ER_Date, HR) values('F2-B20241031215711573','11/1/2024',0) insert into #T(VisitID, ER_Date, HR) values('F3-B20241031164745365','11/1/2024',0) insert into #T(VisitID, ER_Date, HR) values('F2-B20241031214614352','11/1/2024',0) insert into […]
SQL Server 2019 - Administration
Query Network Protocols from T-SQL or PowerShell - Hello experts, I want to be more organized about the SSL certificates we have bound to SQL Servers. Is there a way to use T-SQL or PowerShell to retrieve that information, especially the cert name and expiration date? If I can gather such info in a table, I can sort it and predict when to […]
Occasional Sql Server 2019 slowness (upgraded from 2014) -- please help... - Hi everyone, We recently upgraded our server to Sql Server 2019 (15.0.2125.1 (X64) on Windows Server 2019 Standard 10.0) from the previous Sql Server 2014. The server has 32GB of RAM with an 8- Core 2.10 GHz Intel Xeon chipset. We have noticed periods of slowness in processing from time-to-time which we rarely experienced with […]
DBATools in a agent job - Hi Dbatools is used to copy table data from domain a to domain b (Copy-DbadbTableData). The job step uses a proxy account. There is a trust between domains and the credential used for the proxy has access to sql instance in domain b and the permissions are correct. The script fails with "The certificate chain […]
SQL Server 2019 - Development
Linking 2 SQL Databases - Hi All I am a complete novice so I apologise for any incorrect terminology. What I am trying to do is link 2 systems running different Security Access Control software's from different vendors both using SQL as the data pool. Ultimately what the end goal looks like is system A is the front end and […]
How to write this query? - Hi everyone I have two tables storing stock prices.  Each table comes from a different source so there are slight differences between them at times.  I need to know what those differences are.  I started the query and it works if I look at the results separately.  I am looking at combining the results so […]
ssrs order of operation question - hi i need "sample size" in my report's 4th data region which is a grid with 2 additional full grid with comments.  It is shown in the image. i want to add a 3rd additional comment row to the same tablix .  I want its visibility to depend on "sample size" being less than 10.  […]
Error converting data type varchar to numeric - issue resolved.
SQL Azure - Development
Database copy for report work load - Hi Team, I am looking for a an help, Please see my problem below. I have a Azure MI. I would like to create a replica of two production databases of size 200GB, 40GB respectively to another MI in the same region, and it is to be used for reporting workload. I would like to […]
Reporting Services
Does SSRS Report with Stored Procedure execute SQL string? - I declare @Where based on the input parameter in the stored procedure. Set @SQL = 'Select * from Table1 ' + @where EXECUTE(@SQL) I created a dataset in SSRS to run the stored procedure. It returned no fields. Does SSRS Report with Stored Procedure execute SQL string?  Thanks.  
Powershell
Pull mssql to Postgres - Does anyone have a script\example that would connect to SQL server instance run a query to gather output then connect to PostGreSql DB and load? I have searched but looking for a script rather than a tool so I can schedule process. Thanks.
SQL Server 2022 - Administration
SQL Server Constrained Delegation - Hi, hoping someone can help. We're in the process of migrating to a new SQL instance and bulk load / insert from SMB share isn't working in SMSS or via SQL agent job I'm reasonably confident its Kerberos delegation as I see ANONYMOUS in the file server audit log with constrained delegation and when I […]
SQL Server 2022 - Development
Get Sum and Last month sum - I want to get the sum and I want to get the sum of only last month for VenNum by FiYr and DocDte.  I am having trouble adding the sum of only the previous month. Select count(*) as cnt, T1.FiYr, T1.DocDte, T1.VenNum, Sum(T1.DocCurrAmt) as DocCurrAmt From WalgreensCnlySapPaidHistory.[dbo].[CnlySapRawPaidHistory] T1 Where DocTypeDesc Like '%Scan Base%' and T1.VenNum […]
 

 

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