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The Voice of the DBA

Proactive vs Reactive

So, in my new position as a DBA for a consulting firm, I find a lot of my time spent on fighting fires for various clients. Most are smaller companies that use MS SQL Server but don't have a DBA. Normal one of the developers acts the DBA when needed but doesn't really have that much experience with databases.

I am brought in to address whatever their current issues are and while I do that, I normally run a script to see if I can find other obvious issues. Normally it comes back with a laundry list of potential problems. The most common are: everyone is SysAdmin, SQL Login passwords have never been changed, SQL memory setting are left at default, databases are installed on C: drive, no maintenance jobs are set, etc...

When I bring this up the normal response is that "Ted" set up the server and he left 2 years ago. One time I had a developer tell me it was fine, SQL was working great. I was back 2 months later when all the indexes were at 90% fragmentation and the server had crashed due to no free space on the C: drive.

Now, I am not trying to bag on developers, most times they get pushed into the role of accidental DBA because they can spell SQL. They do the best job they can but unless you understand SQL there is a lot of stuff you can miss. No, my complaint is with the companies. Many treat SQL server as a secondary consideration. They have 10 developers and no DBAs. All their data is in SQL server and without that data they can't operate, but they are in reactive mode when they should be in proactive mode. That 48 hours of down time could have been avoided with a bit of disaster recovery planning and regular maintenance on the databases.

So why is SQL server treated as an afterthought? Are DBAs that hard to fine or that expensive? I know there are companies that will come in and do a SQL assessment and give you a list of things that need to be watched or fixed, but it seems like companies never do that until disaster strikes. Or are my experiences the exception rather than the rule?

Companies need to realize that their data is precious and needs to be proactivily patrolled instead of waiting for the crash and then calling someone like me.

Jim Youmans from SQLServerCentral.com

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New SQL Monitor Reporting Module

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Featured Contents

SSRS Audit: All reports executed/not-executed during previous 30 days

Stan Kulp from SQLServerCentral.com

This article presents a pair of queries and reports that reads the ReportServer.dbo.ExecutionLog table to list all SSRS reports that were executed or not-executed in the past 30 days, how many times they were executed, and who executed them. More »

SQL Clone Trivia Quiz - win a $10 gift card every weekday in April

To celebrate the recent launch of their new database provision tool, Redgate are giving you the chance to win a $10 Amazon or Starbucks gift card every weekday this month. To enter the prize draw, just answer the daily SQL Clone trivia question on the right-hand side of the homepage. More »

Selecting and Configuring Hardware for SQL Server 2016 Standard Edition

Glenn Berry explains why you need to be very careful about your physical processor choice when configuring servers to run SQL Server 2016 Standard Edition. More »

From the SQLServerCentral Blogs - Power BI and Data Security – Row Level Security (RLS)

DataOnWheels from SQLServerCentral Blogs

As Power BI becomes more prevalent in data analytics and visualization within the enterprise, data security becomes a significant concern.... More »

From the SQLServerCentral Blogs - Weaning yourself off of SQL Profiler (Part 1)

Wayne Sheffield from SQLServerCentral Blogs

In this brave, new world of Extended Events (XE, XEvents), I find myself with a mixture of scripts for troubleshooting... More »

Question of the Day

Today's Question (by Steve Jones):

I am connected to a SQL Server instance in Azure and want to create an Azure SQL Data Warehouse database. One of the important parameters is the edition. What are my possible values?

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SQL Server T-SQL Recipes

SQL Server T-SQL Recipes is an example-based guide to the Transact-SQL language that is at the core of SQL Server. This edition has been lightly updated for SQL Server 2014 and provides ready-to-implement solutions to common programming and database administration tasks. Learn to create databases, create in-memory tables and stored procedures, insert and update data, generate reports, secure your data, and more. Get your copy from Amazon today.

Yesterday's Question of the Day

Yesterday's Question (by Steve Jones):

With Dynamic Data Masking in SQL Server 2016+, I have the following mask applied to this table:

 ALTER TABLE users ALTER COLUMN emailaddr ADD MASKED WITH (FUNCTION='email()' )

I have this data in the emailaddr column: "bill@gatescharity.org". If a user that does not have the UNMASK permission but does have SELECT permission queries the table, what is returned?

Answer: bXXX@XXXX.com

Explanation:

The email mask changes all email domains to .com, and shows the first character only of the email address. The domain is masked to xxxx no matter how many characters it is.

Ref: Dynamic Data Masking - click here

» Discuss this question and answer on the forums

Featured Script

PowerShell 3rd Party tool Memory Alert

Edward Pochinski from SQLServerCentral.com

We use a 3rd party tool to monitor some SQL Servers on our farm. After an upgrade we had a memory issue( leak ) on one of the nodes. Once the memory usage crosses 90% you can not re start the service seems the server needs a rebooting not an acceptable solution. If you just bounce the services prior to the 90% mark things stay fine and he product continues working as expected. We developed this as a temporary band aid until the bug fix is sent and applied. This is scheduled from Windows task scheduler. I hope someone may be able to make use of the alert.

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