Instead of working, I blog.

Someone just wrote to tell me that they just had a major outage on their main DW server due to one of the teams upgrading a driver.  There was nothing wrong with what they did, so there’s no reason to believe it would have brought the entire system down.

All I can say is that they had the best DR plan in existence and I had to share it with you so you can mimic it in your own shops.  All you have to do is not take any system-level backups and don’t save any of your configs or any of your files, or document any of your processes.  Then you can just have everyone in the dept wish as hard as they can that nothing bad will ever happen.

It must be an excellent DR plan because it’s the same one that so many companies use.  And it costs next to nothing to implement, which is probably why it’s so popular.  And the real joy is that you can put it into practice almost as quickly as you can put it on paper.  It takes next to no approval from the brass either.

I really don’t see the big deal with DR though.  There’s so much time online and in magazines/books dedicated to this topic and I just don’t get it.  If so many companies already have this practically foolproof DR plan then what’s left to discuss?  I’ve been thinking about this for a while now and I can’t come up with a single situation where this wouldn’t apply. 

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Blog Author of:
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I recently ran across a perfectly delicious situation I wanted to share with you.  Someone actually wrote to tell me about this.  He just started a new gig and there was massive corruption in one of the dev DBs.  He went to ask the DBA where the backup was and he got a very snotty reply. 

Well, as it turns out this was something that the DBA had gone around and around with them about.  See, the devs didn’t want the DBA to do anything on their precious box so they refused to give him rights.  He tried to explain that they needed backups, etc but they wouldn’t hear of any DBAs pissing all over their dev box. 

And now when there’s massive corruption and they need to get their dev code back they call the DBA to ask for help.  Y, fat chance guys. 

I’m here to tell you that the DBA has full snotting rights here.  And it only goes to teach them a lesson I hope.  DBAs aren’t here to piss on your parade.  We’re here to make sure your parade lasts as long as you want and you can even start your parade over and over again if you need to.  Seriously guys all metaphors aside, we’re here to help.  So stop acting like we’re on different sides.

Watch my free SQL Server Tutorials at:
http://MidnightDBA.ITBookworm.com

Read my book reviews at:
www.ITBookworm.com

Blog Author of:
Database Underground – http://www.infoworld.com/blogs/sean-mccown

Follow my Twitter:

http://twitter.com/MidnightDBA

I've always had a soft spot for celebrities who have their entire lives spilled out in public. It's gotta be tough to not only have everyone see how good or bad you do you in your job, but also in your personal life as well. And I've often thought for everything I'm not (rich, well-known, etc) at least I don't have all my failures made public.

At least, that's the way it is until you have a disaster with one of your DBs. Then everyone wants to come stand over your shoulder and watch you bring it back online. Now the heat is on because you have to remember every last command and parameter in front of the crowd. And knowing that is like trying to stop laughing in church. The pressure is just too great. Some DBAs fold at this time. Others just do their jobs like nothing's going on. Me, I clear my desk of on-lookers. I had that happen just this morning. I can't stand to have people just standing there watching me work. I like to be able to follow a train of thought without worrying about how I come off to my audience. So I always tell them... the sooner you leave the sooner I can get to work fixing this.
This morning's disaster came in the form of a dev sending me an email telling me his system was down. He then followed up with a trip to my desk. So I asked him... did you come over just to stand over my shoulder and watch me work? Thankfully, he took the hint and left. But it's not always that easy.

I've always been very sensitive about that with other people too. Unless invited, I always try to stay on the backside of the monitor... especially when someone is trying to get something done in a hurry or needs to concentrate.

There are those who don't really mind people watching them. These would be those who present at conferences all the time and are used to it. But I'm not one of them. Anyway though... give your DBAs a break. If you want them to do something for you, don't stand there and watch them. Just leave and they'll call you when it's ready.