When we do a SQL Server Health Assessment, we quickly dive into SQL Server performance and Windows/Physical/Virtual resource usage counters. During our kick off interview we always ask if you have a SQL Server baseline from the past to compare. Usually the answer is no, unfortunately. Like monitoring and alerting, many of the tools vendors make automated baseline collection tools. Also like alerting, though, … Read more
Last year, I cut my thigh with a chainsaw at my farm. Except I was okay because I had the right protective gear on. I started thinking about that today again while doing a quick chore with the chainsaw. Had that moment of “Hmm.. Do I get the chaps or not for a simple cut” … Read more
I live in New England. I expect snow in the winter. This winter, though, has been a bit of an anomaly from recent winters for us. We started out with very little snow, abnormally little snow. But then it came (and it is still coming) all at once. Over about 4ish weeks we had a … Read more
k-rad.. K From kilobyte.. A thousand.. A thousand times Rad.. Back when a 40MB hard drive was perhaps average or maybe around the time of those big 1.6GB hard drives, it meant “really cool”.. Maybe today it would ex-rad or p-rad. Anyway. There’s a reason for this trip down BBS or mIRC memory lane.. We’ll get … Read more
Continuing from yesterday’s advice to DBAs… Three Four (hey it’s for managers, brownie points…) lessons for management from the Secret Service “issues”. Trust But Verify At the White House “upper management” at Secret Service didn’t realize how bad things were with recent lapses. At least I hope they didn’t and I’m going to assume they … Read more
SQL Server alerts let you know what is happening on your instance. They let you become a proactive DBA and know about problems potentially before your users do. If you don’t have a monitoring tool and it isn’t in the budget right now, setting up and monitoring SQL Server alerts is a free and very … Read more
A couple days ago I posted some of the lessons I learned in the back of an ambulance that have translated into my career as a SQL Server Consultant or a DBA. I promised I had a few more. Here they are. “I Don’t Know What You’ve Been Through” Empathy. My friend Tom LaRock wrote an … Read more