Everyone wants good performance from their database systems. Some even expect and need a high performing Ferrari all the time. How is this achieved though? What do you need to understand about SQL Server specifically in order to make your company’s applications hum along like a well tuned car? We will look at three keys to SQL Server performance.
SQL Server Performance
1. SQL Server must be able to cache sufficient data in memory
Over the last 9 weeks I took you on a journey of skills and career topics related to being a SQL Server DBA. We looked at the Production DBA. We saw skills and career topics from the beginning to mid-career to Senior DBA. Then we looked at the Development DBA and their skills and career development needs. Finally there was a wrap up post.
To make it easier for everyone to get to these posts, I decided to bring them all together on a single page.
We’ve covered a lot of ground for Production and Development DBAs in terms of the skills and applicable career topics. We’ve mentioned necessary skills with T-SQL, backup/restore, automation, PowerShell, troubleshooting, SSIS, SSRS, patching, Query Store, HA/DR, leadership and emotional intelligence. That’s quite a list! However, looking back at the series, there are still a number of things that weren’t mentioned.
Over the past few weeks I have been writing about DBA skills for various career levels, and for a couple of different DBA types - the Production DBA and the Development DBA. Today, we’re examining the Lead Development DBA. You’ll discover what this person needs to know.
So let’s dive into a few of these points in the skill list.
With the last post, we began talking about the Development DBA and the skills needed at the beginning of this career path. Now it’s time for you to ponder what the next level looks like.
In years 2 through 4 the Dev DBA will work with more complex T-SQL such as recursive CTE’s, and error handling with TRY CATCH or the THROW syntax will likely be introduced at this stage. You may begin writing database views during this part of your career and leveraging them to make query writing a bit simpler for yourself and others. You are likely to be exposed to T-SQL Triggers and you’ll need to understand them and even maybe write a few triggers of your own.
We’ve been on a journey recently in this series as we discuss measuring your DBA skills. Previous posts have been intriguing to you. You like where this is going and yet, your skills are different from what we’ve been discussing in this initial part of the series.
Maybe you are a Developer who works with databases and you find SQL Server very interesting. You build some tables and write some queries as part of your work and you really like doing it. You like trying to figure out how to make your initial draft query for your project run faster. You have conversations about this with other Developers or maybe even a DBA or two at your company. What you hear resonates with you and deepens the interest in SQL Server. You wonder, “Is there a place for me in the SQL Server world? What would I do if I did a career pivot to work with SQL Server almost exclusively?” Enter the Development Database Administrator.
In this series on measuring your DBA skills, we’ve been discussing what skills you should have at each phase of your career. So far we’ve covered the entry level skills and the phase 2 skills a Production DBA needs. In this part of the series you’re discovering what a Production DBA needs to know or be able to do at each stop along the career journey. If you want career development, you need to work on these skills in order to move forward.
This is likely the last in a series of three posts about backups and restores. My aim with this series has been to give you an idea of the options available and a basic start on using those options. I’m not trying to go in-depth on the subject of backups and restores.
Today will be about getting you going on the concept of restoring databases in SQL Server. I’m using a local install of SQL Server 2017 on my desktop PC to demonstrate these techniques.
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What process can you use to find SQL Server training resources that will be valuable? After all, not everything on the internet can or should be trusted. If you want training on something in this constantly changing world of technology, how do you locate that training? How do you find information that is worth spending your time on? How much of it costs something? How much of it is free and is the free stuff any good?