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About SQL Sentry The Top 10 Countdown: DBA Mistakes on Microsoft SQL Server o Mistakes come in surprising forms o Often people & process, instead of technology Summary, Resources, and Q&A

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Excludes SQL Server mistakes that are primarily development or design in nature: o Inadequate normalization and database design o Unknown scalability requirements o No baselines or benchmarks o Indexing issues o Query tuning ignorance

Frequently think about disk subsystems only in terms of disk space, not IO load. Without this knowledge, the following problems occur: o Inadequate fault tolerance o Insufficient IO: OLTP requires high transactions/sec OLAP requires high MB transfers/sec o Poor choice of RAID type, controllers, channels o Not enough disk spindles SSD is a game changer for IO!

As the IT professional, you should know how SQL Server works at an “internals” level. o What is checkpoint? Lazywriter? o How is TempDB used? What’s in the plan cache? The DBA is the guardian of the corporate data assets. As the liaison between business and IT, you should know how and in what ways your servers are used. o Who cares if this app is down? How much does the downtime cost the company? o What are the business cycles? o When are the best downtimes? o Baseline? Benchmarks? What is normal? For more tech info: -SQLPASS.org -SQLPerformance.com For more tech info: -SQLPASS.org -SQLPerformance.com

…for help: Forums vs Support: know the value #sqlhelp and Twitter

When the chips are down, the DBA needs a strong, step-by-step methodology for root-cause analysis. Without one, you get: o Missed errors and problems o Errors resulting data loss and catastrophic failure o Poor response times and breached SLAs o Lost credibility Don’t have a methodology? Check out End-to-End Troubleshooting on: o SQL Server Troubleshooting Guide by J. Kehayias on: o server-a-guide-for-the-accidental-dba/ server-a-guide-for-the-accidental-dba/

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SQL Server installation defaults are intended to get the server up and running, but not running optimally: o Auto-grow and Auto-shrink on databasese o Auto sizing of auto-growing databases o Default filegroups o Minor issues can become major issues: MAXDOP FILLFACTOR o Many server- and database-level configuration settings

SQL Injection is the #1 hack on the internet today. o Remarkably, we knew as much about preventing SQL Injection ten years ago as we do today. Plan ahead of time to minimize issues: o Ensure the least privileges principle for applications running on your servers o How much surface area do your servers expose? o Who has access to your servers? o How do you find out the who, what, and when of a breach? See my session Understanding & Preventing SQL Injection at o ttacks ttacks

Automation is the means by which DBAs work “smarter” instead of “harder”. Ironically, it takes a lot of work at the outset to automate. Without automation, DBAs must deal with: o Manual processes prone to error, omission, and forgetfulness o Inability to scale environment to multiple servers o Time constraints from fire-fighter and script-pusher modes Examples of working smarter instead of harder: o Automated error notification o Scheduled jobs o Lots of scripts, not too much GUI Automation made easy with PowerShell and/or WMI: -PowerGUI -Scriptomatic Automation made easy with PowerShell and/or WMI: -PowerGUI -Scriptomatic

DBA’s are the “performance engineer” for their corporation’s IT applications. It’s imperative that the most appropriate feature be applied to each business requirement. Otherwise: o Brittle applications o Applications complexity o Excess resource consumption o “Ooooh! Shiny!” o Design reflects the current “fad” Axiom: There are no IT projects. There are business projects solved using IT.

Change management is important! Without it, DBAs face: o Changes that leave things worse than they started o Piecemeal rollbacks that cripple applications o Inconsistent support across applications and servers Change control versus Change management? Proper change management means: o Key stakeholders have a say in Go-NoGo (CM board) o Performed at pre-planned times and within a defined time limit o Change is tested and verified to have no effect or positive effect on production environment o Changes are isolated, atomic, and reversible

Proper preventative maintenance (PM) helps you: o Catch issue before they become problems o Ensure optimal performance o Perform resource intensive operations with few, if any, users on the system PM on SQL Server should include: o Database consistency checks (DBCC) and CHECKIDENT o Backups with verification followed by restore checks o Defragmentation, Fill factor, Pad Index o Index and Statistic maintenance o Full app recovery (logins in Master, jobs in MSDB, repl, etc) Don’t rely on the Database Maintenance Wizard!

Most preventative maintenance tasks have already been written and vetted by others. Check out: o o o

DBAs often don’t test backups or recoveries as they should. Causes lots of problems: o Can you meet your SLA? RTO? RPO? o Not certain that backups are good: verified and available? o Where’s all the data, files, DLLs, etc for recovery? o Got all of the databases that are needed? o Haven’t tested a full, ground-up restore: What if you have to reinstall everything? o One of the great things about VM recovery! The importance of recovery: the Lost Job scenario o Can you actually restore older, archived data? It’s All About The Data, All The Time, Every Time It’s All About The Data, All The Time, Every Time

1. Only a few big DBA blunders are due to tech skills : Disks as space, not IO Disks as space, not IO No troubleshooting methodology No troubleshooting methodology Going with the defaults Going with the defaults 2. Most DBA blunders are due to process and business issues: Security as an afterthought Security as an afterthought Wrong features Wrong features Change management Change management Preventative maint & automation Preventative maint & automation Backups <> Recovery Backups <> Recovery Let’s connect! Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter at KEKLINE. at More slides at e84 More videos at