1. © 2010 Quest Software, Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Top 10 Admin Mistakes on Microsoft SQL Server Kevin Kline, Quest Software Microsoft MVP since 2004

2. 1 Agenda Speaker Bio About Quest Software The Top 10 DBA Mistakes on Microsoft SQL Server Call to Action Q & A 1

3. 2 Your Speaker: Kevin Kline My first bookFounding PASSMVP Status Twitter @KEKline, Blog at http://KevinEKline.com

4. 3 Top 10 SQL Server Administration Mistakes Excludes SQL Server mistakes that are primarily development or design in nature: –Inadequate normalization and database design –Unknown scalability requirements –No baselines or benchmarks –Indexing issues –Query tuning ignorance See the first Top 10 at: http://www.quest.com/events/ listdetails.aspx?ContentID=5614 3

5. 4 10. Disks – Thinking Space but not IO Frequently think about disk subsystems only in terms of disk space, not IO load. Without this knowledge, the following problems occur: –Inadequate fault tolerance –Insufficient IO: OLTP requires high transactions/sec OLAP requires high MB transfers/sec –Poor choice of RAID type –Not enough disk spindles –Poor use of controllers and/or channels –Let the SAN administrator tell them what they get 4

6. 5 9. Ignorance The DBA is the “guardian” of valuable corporate data assets. As the IT professional, you should know how SQL Server works at an “internals” level. –What is checkpoint? Lazywriter? –How is TempDB used? What’s in the procedure cache? As the liaison between business and IT, you should know how and in what ways your servers are used. –What are the business cycles? –When are the best downtimes? –Who cares if this app is down? How much does the downtime cost the company? 5

7. 6 8. No Troubleshooting Methodology When the chips are down, the DBA needs a strong, step-by-step methodology for root-cause analysis. This leads to: –Missed errors and problems –Errors resulting data loss and catastrophic failure –Poor response times and breached SLAs –Lost credibility Don’t have a methodology? Check out End-to-End Troubleshooting 6

8. 7 7. Going with the Defaults SQL Server installation defaults are intended to get the server up and running, but not running optimally: –Auto-grow and Auto-shrink on databasese –Auto sizing of auto-growing databases –Default filegroups –Minor issues can become major issues: MAXDOP FILLFACTOR 7

9. 8 6. Security as an Afterthought SQL Injection is the #1 hack on the internet today. –Remarkably, we knew as much about preventing SQL Injection ten years ago as we do today. Plan ahead of time to minimize issues: –Ensure the least privileges principle for applications running on your servers –How much surface area do your servers expose? –Who has access to your servers? –How do you find out the who, what, and when of a breach? 8

10. 9 5. Inadequate Automation 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: –Manual processes prone to error, omission, and forgetfulness –Inability to scale environment to multiple servers –Time constraints from fire-fighter and script-pusher modes Examples of working smarter instead of harder: –Automated error notification –Plenty of scheduled jobs –Lots of scripting, not too much GUI 9

11. 10 4. Wrong Feature or Technique for the Job 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: –Applications become brittle –Applications complexity or excess resource consumption –Design reflects the current “fad” 10

12. 11 3. Apathy about Change Management Change management is important! Without it, DBAs face: –Changes that leave things worse than they started –Piecemeal rollbacks that cripple applications –Inconsistent support across applications and servers Proper change management means: –Processed by a “change management board” composed of all key stakeholders –Performed at pre-planned times and within a defined time limit –Change is tested and verified to have no effect or positive effect on production environment –Changes are isolated, atomic, and reversible 11

13. 12 2. Inadequate Preventative Maintenance Proper preventative maintenance (PM) helps you: –Catch issue before they become problems –Ensure optimal performance –Perform resource intensive operations with few, if any, users on the system PM on SQL Server should include: –Database consistency checks (DBCC) –Backups with verification& Restore checks –Defragmentation Fill factor Pad Index –Index Statistics  Don’t rely on the Database Maintenance Wizard! 12

14. 13 1. Backups <> Recovery DBAs often don’t test backups or recoveries as they should. Causes lots of problems: –Can you meet your SLA? –Not certain that backups are good: verified and available –Where’s all the data, files, DLLs, etc for recovery? –Haven’t tested a full, ground-up restore: What if you have to reinstall everything? The importance of recovery: the Lost Job scenario –Cannot actually perform a full restore on older, archived data 13

15. 14 Back to Basics: Quick Review via Demo Free posters, guides, and other goodies. HTTP://www.quest.com/backstage/promotion.aspx HTTP://www.quest.com/backstage/promotion.aspx Free DVD Training: HTTP://db-management.com/liveHTTP://db-management.com/live March 2010 July 2010

16. 15 Quest Software Resources for SQL Server SQLServerPedia – SQL Server knowledge base, straight from the experts. HTTP://www.SQLServerPedia.com SQL Server Community – Online discussion forums, customization library, and beta programs. HTTP://SQLServer.quest.com SQL Server Backstage – All things SQL Server at Quest including our Pain of the Week Webcasts. HTTP://www.quest.com/BackStage Free posters, guides, and other goodies. HTTP://www.quest.com/backstage/promotion.aspx HTTP://www.quest.com/backstage/promotion.aspx

17. © 2010 Quest Software, Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Questions ? Send questions to me at: kevin.kline@quest.comkevin.kline@quest.com Twitter @kekline Blogs at SQLServerPedia.com, SQLblog.com, SQLMag.com Rate Me – http://SpeakerRate.com/kekline/http://SpeakerRate.com/kekline/ Content at http://KevinEKline.com/Slides/http://KevinEKline.com/Slides/

18. 17 Solution AreaProductDescription Fast, flexible backup and recovery with industry-leading compression technology Discover and resolve performance issues in production before they impact end users and service levels. Gain control of disk space, growth rates and index maintenance Plan and develop applications that deliver both functionality and optimal performance SQLServerPedia Backup and Recovery Performance Management Capacity Management Development Comprehensive schema, object, security and change management Administration Be part of the community and learn about SQL Server with Quest’s free online resources Community, Knowledge, Training