Challenge for all the Seniors (DBAs)Question Area You (Today) You (6 Months) You (1 Year)

1 Design Tables

2 Write Queries

3 Deploy Changes

4 Tune Queries

5 Monitor Performance

6 Troubleshoot Outages

7 Install & Configure SQL

8 Design & Test DR

Using the the questions that follow in the next 8 slides, evaluate your areas of expertise in the today column

Design New Tables

1. Never, I deal with tables other people made.

2. A couple of times a quarter.

3. Once a month.

4. Every week – I’m very familiar with data modelling tools and I

own data modelling books.

Write Queries

1. When you write a query, you use the same syntax you

havebeen using for years

2. Use books and blogs on line – sometimes.

3. Regularly watch web casts or subscribe to blogs to

improve T-SQL

4. Present to local user groups.

Deploy Changes

1. Make them live in production. What, is there something else?

2. Script them out first and test them in development.

3. Script them out, test them, document the change that I’m expecting, and monitor afterwards to make sure I got the change I was expecting.

4. Check the changes into source control, have someone else test them, and then deploy them in an automated fashion.

Tune QueriesWhen I tune queries, I1. I feel like I’m back in high school, in the back seat of a car,

fumbling around in the dark, groping indexes and execution plans blindly.

2. I know when I should apply a missing index recommendation, and when I shouldn’t

3. I know how to hand craft an index to improve a query even when there is no missing index recommendation.

4. I can recognise when I’m getting the wrong join for a query, and I know when I should influence the Server to pick the right one.

Monitor Performance

When they say SQL is slow, I1. Am completely surprised. 2. Know which SQL server metrics to look at.3. what my server’s normal baselines are for any given metric.4. Tell them I already knew about it because I have alerting set up

correctly, with thresholds configured properly for my baselines, and I don’t have email rules set up to push all alerts into a different folder.

Troubleshoot Outages

When SQL goes down, I1. Am completely surprise.2. Remote desktop in and start poking around.3. Have a rough idea of what logs I need to hit, in what order, and I

am confident in how much time it will take to fail over to my secondary servers.

4. Grabs my customized First Responder Kit and step through my well-rehearsed troubleshooting steps.

Install & Configure SQL

When I install SQL Server, I1. Run setup.exe2. Google for a setup best practise checklist3. Grab my customized checklist that has my company-specific

settings4. Get my prepped installation files off the file share and run

an automated installation

Design & Test DR

When I design SQL HA / DR, I:1. Wait, what do you mean design? My instances are standalone2. Use the same techniques I’ve been using for years3. Have a good idea of what my options are, and work with the

business to pick the right solution4. Get the business’s RPO and RTP requirements in writing, then

write down a few options for them with budget estimates

How many Companies have these DBA Types?

Development DBA DevOps DBA Production DBA

Design tables 4

Writes queries 4

Deploy changes 4

Tune queries 4

Monitor performance 4

Troubleshoot outages 4

Install & config SQL 4

Design & test DR 4

A score of 4 indicates a position of senior