Featured Article(s)
Validating an Object has Been Used
Are you in the mood to start cleaning house? Do you know where to start, do you know what stored procedures are used and what ones are not. Here are a couple options to get you started.
Featured White Paper(s)
A Comparison of Disk-Based Data Protection Techniques
Balancing the need for availability and performance of the application with the need to capture and store backup copies of th… (read more)
Backups – Specifically, Restores… You have a new option
If you’ve ever worked through a restore, you know that restoring a simple bit of data can take hours – restore to a temporary database, get access set up, pull the information you need, etc. It can be a hugely time-consuming process. It doesn’t have to be that way though – check out this webcast to see how Idera’s new SQL virtual database makes it possible to get instant access without going through the pain of a restore. It’s a great tool that will help you get back up and running immediately. Check it out here.
Application-Centric DBAs A Clear Reality
Lots of feedback already on how people are approaching the idea of being an application DBA. Send in your thoughts here and let me know what you think.
Darren writes – "Interesting discussion. Although my job title is SQL DBA, nearly every 3rd party application we buy now or upgrade has a SQL backend. However we only have dedicated application specialists doing with core systems like PMS, CRM and document management. Therefore all the other smaller applications fall into a grey area and its myself and another DBA that normally ends up dealing with these applications. This is especially true of late when we want to move some remaining SQL2000 databases on to SQL2005, but the application needs to be upgraded to work and be supported. I moved from law firm to another and most law firms use the same 3rd party software so its of benefit to me to know these applications, however if I moved out of a law firm, would probably not be beneficial.
Its quite hard sometimes dealing with all the 3rd party apps especially when you have multiple databases sharing the same SQL instance, where one app may support a SQL service pack and others don’t. Also many of the ones we deal with still don’t support SQL2008 which prevents you from migrating.
Interesting to see other DBA views on this subject."
Rex also chimed in with his thoughts – "An application DBA is how I presented myself.
My real expertise is in application administration and SQL Server Administration. I manage the entire application tier rather than just the SQL Servers. Things like backups and restore and integration are still my most common tasks. But I am often needed for performance improvements of SQL procs, data Automation, Database Design, release management, Systems integration, ETL, and oddly Disaster Recovery has become a new expertise for me in the last 2 years.
I am less an expert on the HW side (things like clustering and HW/IO/SCSI/Raid/SAN, ). These are things that I do but are not my specialty.
Recently I just moved to a more scripting focused job where I am taking my expertise of a legacy system and in migrating that same legacy data from .NET SQL to PeopleSoft Oracle. So I am following the application and performing "Last Rites" on it after keeping it running for the last 3 years.
This is really the main channel of the work I do on a specific system. But then I get leverage for application "best practice" expertise on dozens of other systems by many other teams."
Featured Script
Parent Child recursive Query
Implementation of CTE in recursion.Where It Travels through the System Tables to 4 Levels and gets the –Matser to Detail T… (read more)