As A DBA, Where Do I Start?

This presentation is aimed at the starting DBA, accidental DBA or developer having to wear a DBA hat occasionally. It was written to hopefully convey the important order of operations to a DBA just starting out and walk through the “itties” of Database Administration.

Related Blog Posts At StraightPath Solutions

• Tips for SQL Server DBAs Starting Out – This post was the origin of the presentation topic. I talk about the itties of database administration and a potential order of priority.
• Why I think you focus too much on your backups – As discussed in the presentation, the focus should be on restores. May seem like semantics, but the focus on restore means you are thinking of more questions.
• How Do You Install SQL Server? – The first of a 3 part series where we discuss some tips for installing SQL Server and planning for a successful implementation.
• SQL Server Benchmarking Tips – I introduced the Performance Analysis For Logs tool in this presentation, this post talks about that tool.
• Checklists, Recipes and Algorithms – As DBAs we can take lessons from Pilots, Chefs and Doctors and tools they use in their careers.
• Paranoid Control Freak? You Might Make a Good DBA – Kidding, but some aspects of these attitudes can help a DBA out.
• A Lesson On The Right Attitude – From a trip to the dump… The right attitude at work can make a world of difference.
• Find All SQL Server Instances On Your Network – I talk about using the Microsoft Assessment and Planning toolkit to locate all of your SQL Server instances. This post describes my discovery and use of this great (and free) tool.

Tools Discussed

During the presentation, I go through a few different tools. Some links to more info about them:

• Microsoft Assessment And Planning Toolkit – Find your SQL Server instances. A free tool from Microsoft that will list out all SQL Server instances on your network. I blog about using this tool here.
• Performance Analysis For Logs (PAL) -  A great (free) tool to use for checking through your perfmon logs.

Some Other Links/Resources

I haven’t read this book yet but I plan on doing a review when it starts shipping. Knowing Tom from his blog, his online presence and some conversations with him, I have a feeling this book is designed for the same people this presentation is designed for. You can pre-order DBA Survivor: Become a Rock Start DBA on Amazon.

The Presentation

(v1.0, as presented at SQL Saturday #34 in Waltham, MA on 1/30/2010)

Questions/Comments?

Send your questions to mike at the domain of this blog or add comments below  and I will get back to you and update here if necessary.

• One Comment – I received at the Waltham event in the halls after speaking was, “Set it and forget it is my whole goal!” in response to the notion that SQL Server is -not-”set it and forget it”. Great Point. We should strive, in a way, to make our environments bet in a set and forget state. By focusing on the itties we talked about in the presentation, getting a monitoring tool setup (I use SQL Sentry and Quest Spotlight typically in environments I work with) and developing a good maintenance routine, we can get closer to that point. But this is something we work towards. SQL Server is not set-it-and-forget-it out of the box . I know the person mentioning this to me knew that and was raising a great point. Let’s try and get our environments into this mode.