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DBA database management checklist Written By: Edgewood Solutions Engineers --

Problem

For both old and new DBAs there are fundamental procedures that should be addressed and properprocesses put in place to handle various areas of database management for S! Server" Whether you are

a full time DBA or this is one of many #ob roles that you perform the same basic steps should beimplemented and adhered to in order to have some peace of mind that you are performing the correct

procedures to ensure a healthy running S! Server environment" For old DBAs these items should be ano-brainer$ but often a refresher is good reminder to ma%e sure everything is in place" For new DBAs

some of these basic items are not all that apparent and often some of the most basic DBA &'& items aresometimes overloo%ed" So based on this$ what is a good plan to implement to ma%e sure the basic S!Server DBA items are being addressed(

Solution

)he following is a chec%list of &' items that should be in place for all of your S! Server databaseservers" Some of these items are pretty basic and easy to implement$ while others re*uire a higher level

of effort to thin% through what is needed and then to implement the process"

)hese items are not necessarily written in any priority order$ because not any one of these items is acomplete database management plan it really re*uires all of these items to be thought about$ addressedand implemented"

# Item Steps

1 Backups

This is one of the most basic items to be addressed. Everyone knows that a good solid backupplan should be in place for all databases but time and time again I run across servers where thewrong or no backup plan is in place.To get started you need to ask yourself a few !uestions such as the following"

hat are you trying to recover from when a failure occurs$

%ow much data can be lost$ & day one hour a week none...

hat kind of processing occurs transaction based batch loading a combination$ 'an the data be easily recreated if there is a failure or is this the only source of thisdata$

This is (ust a short list of !uestions to ask but once these are addressed this will allow you todetermine) 1* the recovery model for your database and +* the backup processing.

,epending on your needs your backup plan may look like one of the following"

,aily full backups only ,aily full backups and transaction log backups every hour ,aily full backups transaction log backups every 1- minutes and differential backups

every hours

/ote" If you are unsure what to do start with at least full backups on a daily basis. If your data isvery important and you cannot easily recreate the data change your database recovery model to022 and implement both full and transaction log backups.

+ 3un Integrity'hecks

&nother area that should be addressed is the integrity of your data. S42 Server offers a fewoptions to address this such as ,B'' '%E'5,B ,B'' '%E'5T&B2E ,B'''%E'5&226' etc...These commands check the allocation structure and logical integrity of all ob(ects in yourdatabase. In addition to running these commands either through maintenance plans

maintenance (obs or via a !uery window you also need to analy7e the data to look for anyintegrity issues that need to be addressed. This is another area that I see a lot of where thecommands are run via maintenance (obs but no one ever reviews the reports to see if there areany issues that need to be addressed.

0or the most part these integrity issues pop up a lot less than they did with earlier versions of

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S42 Server but this is still an area that should be part of your ,B& procedures.

8 9aintain Inde:es

Inde:es are those helpful pointers that allow you !uick access to your data pages in yourdatabase. hen inde:es are newly created the structure is nice and clean and everything worksgreat by accessing your data via the inde: instead of having to scan the entire table. 6ver time these helpful inde:es become fragmented and take up unnecessary space andaccessing your data pages is not as efficient as it was when the inde:es were first created. Thisis where inde: maintenance is a critical ,B& process that needs to be in place.

In S42 Server +;;; you have the ability to run inde: rebuilds across the board for all tableswhen using maintenance plans. This was an all or nothing approach. In S42 Server +;;- youalso have the ability to run inde: rebuilds as well as inde: defrags. In addition you can pickspecific tables that you need to manage. &lthough this is not a perfect process for maintaininginde:es it is definitely better than not doing anything.

To take this a step further you can manage your inde: maintenance table by table or inde: byinde:. Some inde:es will become fragmented while others may never have an issue based onhow the inde: was created and how data is applied to the table

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your time fi:ing issues that will have a big impact versus fi:ing something that will not have avery big impact.

H ,ocument

&nother thing that should be implemented is a documentation process to document procedurespriority lists escalation lists production changes roll out procedures etc... & good set ofprocedures should be established so everyone that works on your S42 Servers understands theprocesses that you have put in place as well as to document all changes that occur so when aproblem does arise you can pinpoint when a change was made.& simple te:t file could be used to track your changes or since we are all databasedevelopers