June 9, 2009 at 6:22 pm
Hello All,
I work in small company as a DBA/Programmer/ETL developer. Due to slow economy, my company is not getting enough projects as a result, all our environment (Databases, Appn Servers) are doing good. That makes me feel insecure as we are not busy enough at work. I do spend time in updating myself but important thing is to be a value to the company. In that case, could you guys share with me if any of u feel the same, then what steps are you taking to be a value to the company? Thanks everyone.
June 9, 2009 at 8:31 pm
This would be a good time to work on enhancing the performance of queries.
Run a server-side trace to track the activity on your servers, getting the duration, reads and writes. Load this info into a table, and see which queries (and/or procedures) have the highest impact. Then take the top 5, and make them run better.
Repeat this every week.
Wayne
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server 2008
Author - SQL Server T-SQL Recipes
June 9, 2009 at 9:06 pm
Thats exactly what I did today, instead of top 5 I went for top 3 queries. Really appreciate your response. Thanks.
June 10, 2009 at 7:55 am
.
June 10, 2009 at 7:58 am
Any more suggestions? Any idea will be helpful. thanks
June 10, 2009 at 3:41 pm
start checking fragmentation in your databases at points in time furthest from when they are rebuilt, see if you can identify any tables that become fragmented quickly and would benefit from more frequent defrags.
Do tests to see if more frequent stats updates improve performance
(basically tune your housekeeping to the individual needs of each database)
run perfmons on all servers to get baseline stats if you don't have them already
Sounds like a good time to do a disaster recovery test.
Get proactive with end-users, are they happy with performance? If not, what bits of the apps are slow?
Make sure your manager knows you are doing this.
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June 10, 2009 at 5:37 pm
That seems like good home work and nice points George. Well, I do need to get same baseline stats. I really appreciate your help. Nice checklist.
June 10, 2009 at 7:42 pm
Documentation.
I know, :sick:, but you'l never have a better opportunity.
[font="Times New Roman"]-- RBarryYoung[/font], [font="Times New Roman"] (302)375-0451[/font] blog: MovingSQL.com, Twitter: @RBarryYoung[font="Arial Black"]
Proactive Performance Solutions, Inc. [/font][font="Verdana"] "Performance is our middle name."[/font]
June 11, 2009 at 4:19 am
RBarryYoung (6/10/2009)
Documentation.
Now you're just being silly. 🙂
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June 14, 2009 at 9:38 am
I have the same problem. Everything is so running so smoothly that I may have worked my way out of a job. So, I've been thinking of valuable projects to implement.
A very good project for you and your employer is to program "PERFMON.exe" to sample critical metrics on all of your servers, not just the DBMS server, and to store these in a SQL Server database for trend analysis.
This information will tell you:
> the peaks and valleys of system resource utilization,
> the days and times when it occurs,
> predictive feedback on when your applications might outgrow your current server resources,
> and other information about your servers that you and your employer might want to know that you haven't even thought of yet.
LC
June 14, 2009 at 12:04 pm
So far all the suggestions are those items that are a DBAs responsibility. What I would suggest is for you to think out of the box. What use could the data be put to that it is not now utilized for?
Not knowing your company product(s) or service(s) let me give you a scenario that might stir your creative juices. If manufacturing - how can your data be of better use in the realm of:
Order quantity least cost strategies
...Cost of purchasing
...Quantity discounts
...Joint replenishment
Inventory control
...Order Point
...Lead time
...Review time
...Forecast of usage per time unit
...Measure of forecast error
...Service and safety stocks
Forecasting sales and/or usage
...Using exponential smoothing / double smoothing
...Seasonal forecasting
In other words make your product (the database(s)) more valuable to the company and you will by this means be more valuable to the company
June 14, 2009 at 12:39 pm
hmm ... what would firefighters do when they have a calm week ....
Training, reviewing, optimizing,
Training:
- persnol level knowladge and practise training
- refresh known stuff
- evaluate new techniques
- prepare for the worst
- test if DRPs actually work (do you have a spare set of your regualar tools, scripts, working procedures, DRPs,...)
Reviewing:
- check their material for flaws, ...
- check if maintenance is needed
- update / upgrade if needed
Optimizing:
- are the used procedures actually best for their job
- are the current standards performing well enough
- are the current resources being used to the optimum
- do we have enough spare materials
...
That's why many companies now have audits being performed.
Now you might have the time to adapt procedures, profing concepts, actual inventory.
Johan
Learn to play, play to learn !
Dont drive faster than your guardian angel can fly ...
but keeping both feet on the ground wont get you anywhere :w00t:
- How to post Performance Problems
- How to post data/code to get the best help[/url]
- How to prevent a sore throat after hours of presenting ppt
press F1 for solution, press shift+F1 for urgent solution 😀
Need a bit of Powershell? How about this
Who am I ? Sometimes this is me but most of the time this is me
June 14, 2009 at 4:28 pm
Search the dbo.sysComments tables (SQL Server 2000) or the sys.sql_modules tables (SQL Server 2005) for the word "WHILE" and repair that code.
Also, test the restoration of backups and maybe write the standard guidline for doing such a thing. Maybe even go whole hog and setup/test a disaster recovery program.
--Jeff Moden
June 14, 2009 at 7:23 pm
Jeff Moden (6/14/2009)
Also, test the restoration of backups and maybe write the standard guidline for doing such a thing. Maybe even go whole hog and setup/test a disaster recovery program.
First, what all is necessary to test the restoration of backups? I've been looking at standing up a server that grabs the daily (full) backups from the other servers, and restoring them one-by-one. Is this sufficient to test the restoration of a backup?
Wayne
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server 2008
Author - SQL Server T-SQL Recipes
June 14, 2009 at 11:56 pm
it depends...
From a dba perspective that migth be enough.
Did you also restore master and msdb ??
If not and your apps are using sql authentictation, they will not be able to connect because their sql accounts will not exist !
Off course restoring msdb may have a risk if jobs are pushing / pulling stuff all over the place.
Johan
Learn to play, play to learn !
Dont drive faster than your guardian angel can fly ...
but keeping both feet on the ground wont get you anywhere :w00t:
- How to post Performance Problems
- How to post data/code to get the best help[/url]
- How to prevent a sore throat after hours of presenting ppt
press F1 for solution, press shift+F1 for urgent solution 😀
Need a bit of Powershell? How about this
Who am I ? Sometimes this is me but most of the time this is me
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