Evaluate your Daily Checklist against 100+ instances of SQL Server while you get a cup of coffeeJohn Sterrett (@JohnSterrett)
http://johnsterrett.com/go/PBM
5/12/2011
Thank you Attendees & Sponsors
• I am not an expert but I stayed at a Holiday Inn once….
• Founder of WVPASS (SQL UG)• I reside in Wheeling, WV (Pittsburgh, PA)• Work for Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP
– Responsible 100+ Instances of SQL Server– Responsible for PeopleSoft
About Me….
My Story….
Urgency
Importance
BackupsCorruptionFailed mission critical SQL Jobs
Process improvementsContinuing educationProjectsIndex ManagementPerformance Tuning
Pittsburgh Pirates winning the world series
Everything else…
Failed JobsLow Disk Space
Comes from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey
• 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 Questions
Daily Checklist
46%
54%
Do you have a Daily Checklist?
YesNo
Daily Checklist?
20%
19%
17%
19%
11%
8%5%
What do you check in your daily checklist?
Full Backups succeeded
Transactional log backups succeeded
SQL Services are running
SQL Agent jobs succeeded
Disks have free space
Data and Log files have free space
Other
Daily Checklist?
6%
17%
13%
13%
40%
6%4%
How do you evaluate your daily checklist?Policy-Based Management and/or Central Manage-ment Server
3rd Party Tool
It's a manual process
We don't have a process to evaluate daily checklists
I don't know how to eval-uate a daily checklist
SQL Agent Notifications and/or Alerts
I built my own tool
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?
I prefer notifications and….
• Similar to local server group except it’s a repository for your team.
• Group database servers– Environment– Version– Location
• Apply scripts against all servers in a group• Not all checklist items can be validated with
PBM• 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 management
server.– Windows Authentication of the individual servers is used to execute t-sql and
policies.
First look at CMS
• 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
• CMS itself cannot automate query execution.• CMS only supports windows authentication• Query results are ordered by server name• Cannot include host server (Unless you use
127.0.0.1 or add port number)• Query executes for all listed servers. (Includes
duplicates)
CMS Gotchas!
Leverage PowerShell to automate CMS
• Aaron Nelson – SQL University PowerShell Week
DEMO!
• Automate CMS with PowerShell
• Policy-Based Management is a system for managing one or more instances of SQL Server 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 SQL Server\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 are enabled for automatic evaluation.
34051 On change – prevent when the policy is on 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 against any facet and it'll be executed once for each target in the target set.
• The proxy account is called ##MS_PolicyTsqlExecutionLogin## used for scheduled 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 separate
locations• 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 practice
for 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 Multiple Servers 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 at http://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?
Notes (hidden)
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