Surviving the Holidays with SQL Server

December 14, 2016

Our Goals

• Ensure whoever is in the office has everything he or she needs.

• Minimize the requirement for contacting someone out of office.

• Train up more people to do the job.

Performance Criteria

The Right BackupsRestore Scripts

Points of Contact3

12

4

Should you

assume …?

No!

The Right Backups

What are the right backups? How do you know you have them?

The Right Backups

How You Know You’ve Got What You Need…• Recovery Point Objective (RTO)• Recovery Time Objective (RTO)• Operating Level Agreements (OLAs)• Service Level Agreements (SLAs)

The Right Backups

Check Against What You’ve Got• Review Your backups – Do you have them all?• Check backup history looking for failures.• Check the actual backup locations!• Check permissions for support staff.

Everythingin place?

Check / correct documentation.

No “tribal knowledge!”

Restore Scripts

How do you know the backups are good?

Restore Scripts

Test Restores of Your Backups• Use scripts, not the GUI.• Build your scripts to take input.• Test restore automation for complex recovery.• Make sure support has access to the scripts!

Restore Scripts

Why You Should Test• Verify the backups are, in fact, good.• Ensure there are scripts for every database.• Be able to generate estimates for recovery time.• Have support test with you (OJT).

Performance Criteria

Do you know what indicates a performance issue?

Performance Criteria

Have Baselines• Know what a system looks like normally.• Have a baseline to refer back to.• Make sure support understands the baseline.• Batch processing as well as business day.

Performance Criteria

What other duties are required?

Performance Criteria

Document Additional Duties• Every group is different.• What do you do outside of the standard DBA?• Document what, when, and how.• Train support to do these additional duties.• Make sure PoCs know about support.

Points of Contact

Who should be contacted?

Points of Contact

Compile Them All• Outside vendors for the products.• Support personnel from other teams.• Business folks over systems.• Escalation paths.

Points of Contact

Include:• When folks will be in and out of office.• Work, cell, and other contact numbers.• SLA/OLA expectations for each system.

Questions?

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