Evaluate your Daily Checklist against100+ instances of SQL Server whileyou get a cup of coffeeJohn Sterrett (@JohnSterrett)

http://johnsterrett.com/go/PBM

4/27/2011

• I am not an expert but I stayed at a Holiday Innonce….

• I reside in Wheeling, WV (Pittsburgh, PA)

• Work for Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP

– Responsible 100+ Instances of SQL Server

– Responsible for PeopleSoft

About Me….

• Do you have a daily checklist?

• What is your daily checklist?

– Full backups

– Transactional Log backups

– Free space

– SQL Agents are enabled

– SQL Agent jobs succeeded

• How do you evaluate your daily checklist?

– Central Management Server (CMS)

– Policy Based Management (PBM)

Daily Checklist

Daily Checklist

70%

30%

Do you have a Daily Checklist?

Yes

No

Daily Checklist?

20%

19%

17%

19%

12%

8%5%

What do you check in your daily checklist?Full Backups succeeded

Transactional log backupssucceededSQL Services are running

SQL Agent jobssucceededDisks have free space

Data and Log files havefree spaceOther

Daily Checklist?

9%

28%

21%

21%

9%

9%3%

How do you evaluate your daily checklist? Policy-Based Managementand/or CentralManagement Server3rd Party Tool

It's a manual process

We don't have a process toevaluate daily checklists

I don't know how toevaluate a daily checklist

SQL Agent Notificationsand/or Alerts

Job Notifications…..

Trust but verify…..

• Is the SQL Agent enabled for all servers?

• Does email operator exist for all jobs?

• Is the operator the same across all servers?

• Is Database Mail enabled for all servers?

• Similar to local server group except it’s arepository for your team.

• Group database servers

– Environment

– Version

– Location

• Apply scripts against all servers in a group

• Not all checklist items can be validated withPBM

• Can use SQL Server 2008 R2 Express

Central Management Server (CMS)

Which version of SQL should I use?

• MSDB is used to store servers and groups

• Servers –msdb.dbo.sysmanagement_shared_registered_servers_internal

• Groups –msdb.dbo.sysmanagement_shared_server_groups_internal

CMS Internals

CMS Security

• Security –– ServerGroupAdministratorRole role can manage the central management

server.

– ServerGroupReaderRole role is required to connect to a central managementserver.

– Windows Authentication of the individual servers is used to execute t-sql andpolicies.

First look at CMS

• CMS itself cannot automate query execution.

• CMS only supports windows authentication

• Query results are ordered by server name

• Cannot include host server (Unless you use127.0.0.1 or add port number)

• Query executes for all listed servers. (Includesduplicates)

CMS Gotchas!

• Create Configuration Management Server

• Create Groups

• Register Servers

• Execute scripts against a group

– Find missing backups

– Find failed SQL Agent Jobs

– Check SQL Agent Service is enabled

DEMO

Leverage PowerShell to automate CMS

• Aaron Nelson – SQL University PowerShell Week

DEMO!

• Automate CMS with PowerShell

• Policy-Based Management is a system formanaging one or more instances of SQLServer 2008 (* BOL).

• Some facets allow you to enforce standards with“On-Change – Prevent”

• Can import and export policies

• Apply changes when evaluation fails

• Policies can run against SQL 2000 & 2005

Policy-Based Management (PBM)

• Prevent things from happening Apply changes

• Automate validation of checklists

– Checklists are prone to human error.

– Server configurations can change over time.

• Daily checklist items we will validate

– SQL Agent is enabled

– SQL Agent Jobs

– Full backups

– Transactional Log backups

– Free Space

I use CMS & PBM to do two things…

• Targets

• facets

• conditions

• policy

• categories

• server restrictions

PBM Concepts and Terms

Page Verify Policy

Database Target

Database Performance Facet

@PageVerify = true Condition

SQL Server 2005 or newer Server Restriction

On Schedule Evaluation Mode

PBM Example – Page Verify

http://www.littlekendra.com/2011/01/25/pageverify/

• On Demand

– Executed by user or powershell scripts

• On Schedule

– Uses SQL Agent

• On Change – Prevent

– Uses DDL Triggers

– * Nested Triggers should be enabled

• On Change – Log Only

– uses event notification

• For More: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb510667%28SQL.100%29.aspx

Evaluation Modes

• Not all facets support On-change.

– On Change – Log (17)

– On Change – Prevent (12)• Application Role

• Asymmetric Key

• Database Role

• Endpoint

• Login Options

• Multipart Name

On-Change Evaluation….

• Resource Pool• Schema• Stored Procedure• Table Options• User Defined Function• User Options• View Options• Workload Group

• Best Practices

– SQL Server 2008 Feature Packs

– C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQLServer\100\Tools\Policies\DatabaseEngine\1033

• Interwebs

– http://www.mssqltips.com/category.asp?catid=89

– Blogs

– Bing or Google

Where can I find policies?

Message Number Evaluation Mode

34050 On change – prevent when policies areenabled for automatic evaluation.

34051 On change – prevent when the policy ison demand

30452 On Schedule

34053 On change – Log

Policy Alerts

* On demand cannot be enabled so there are no alerts.

• Views in MSDB database and dbo schema– syspolicy_policies

– syspolicy_conditions

– syspolicy_system_health_state

– syspolicy_categories

– syspolicy_policy_category_subscriptions

– syspolicy_policy_execution_history

– syspolicy_policy_execution_history_details

– syspolicy_object_sets

– syspolicy_target_sets

For more: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb510742.aspx

PBM Views

PBM - ExecuteSQL

• The ExecuteSql() function can be used againstany facet and it'll be executed once for eachtarget in the target set.

• The proxy account is called##MS_PolicyTsqlExecutionLogin## used forscheduled jobs

• http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlpbm/archive/2008/07/03/executesql.aspx

• Cannot modify or create facets

• Policies fail to read mount points as separatelocations

• ExecuteSQL only supports @ObjectName and@SchemaName

• Reporting is very limited out of the box

• On Change-Prevent is limited

• Best Practice Policies may not be best practicefor your shop.

Gotchas!

• Create a Category

• Import Policies

• Export Policies

• Create Policy

• Evaluate Policy– On-Demand

– Scheduled

– On Change – Prevent

– On Change – Log

– Apply Policy

• Evaluate Policy on MultipleServers using CMS

• View Policy History

PBM Demo!

• http://epmframework.codeplex.com/

• EPMF leverages

– Central Management Server

– Policy-Based Management

– PowerShell

– XML

– SQL Server Reporting Services

Reporting - EPM Framework

• Show EMPF…

DEMO!

• All reference material can be found athttp://johnsterrett.com/go/PBM

– Books On Line

• Administering Servers by Using Policy-Based Management

– Book

• Pro SQL Server 2008 Policy-Based Management

– White Papers

• Enterprise Policy Management Framework with SQL Server 2008

• SQL Server 2008 Policy-Based Management

– Web

• www.mssqltips.com

Where you should go from here?

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