The #TSQL2sday #70 roundup

tsqltuesdayTime for the T-SQL Tuesday #70 roundup! I asked people for their best enterprise management strategies, and they responded beautifully.

Here we go.

Rob Farley : Superhero powers for managing the enterprise. Rob talks about  what his consulting company looks for when talking to a customer. Specifically, things that are out of the ordinary. And of course, backing up your “spider-sense” with real numbers. I was especially pleased by: Australian spelling of “analysed”, superhero reference.

The Baking DBA: It’s Time to Discuss “Strategies for Managing an Enterprise”. Here we have the triumphs (and tragedies!) of management through automation. The author provides links and tools!  I was especially pleased by: XKCD links; the use of the phrase “relentlessly use automation”. Aww, yisss.

Nick Haslam: Enterprising Thoughts. Nick gives some love to a third party tool, and two in-house features of SQL Server itself.  I was especially pleased by: SQL Prompt itself (love that tool), the lovely blog background.

Rob Sewell: Enterprise Strategies – A #TSQL2sDay post. Rob gives some seriously solid advice in his column, along with a Powershell script and links to further reading. I was especially pleased by: Powershell code! And, “don’t overdo the alerts”; and, “to simplify it as much as possible and to automate everything”.

Jack Vamvas:SQL Server Security Violations Report for t-sql tuesday. Jack focuses on the security aspect of enterprise management, and well he should; it’s a big, important topic. His strategy includes regular scans for policy violations, and weekly reporting and intervention.  I was especially pleased by: The focus of the piece; the number of valid concerns noted.

Kenneth Fisher: Where you should start when managing an enterprise. Kenneth gives an excellent breakdown of, and links to, management tools and methods. I was especially pleased by: Shoutout to the #sqlhelp hashtag. And our good friend Kenneth, promoting our upcoming precon. (No, we didn’t ask him. He’s really that nice of a guy.)

Nancy Hidy Wilson: TSQL2sday #70 – Strategies for Managing an Enterprise. Nancy places an emphasis of effort reduction – and so should we all – in enterprise management. How? Organization, standardization, and automation, all using native SQL Server features.  I was especially pleased by: Her note about an upcoming, related session she’s presenting in Dallas. The idea of org / std / automation becoming a sort of holy trinity of DBAs (this was my thought…)

Lori Edwards: T-SQL Tuesday #70 – Managing an Enterprise. Lori tells us a story of her time as an overburdened DBA, and how she kept it in hand. “…there were no magic tricks to make it easy. There were, however, some things that made it more doable.”  I was especially pleased by: A note on actual human interaction as part of the strategy (“work closely with the application owners”).

Steve Jones: T-SQL Tuesday #70 – The Enterprise | Voice of the DBA. Steve also tells a story of an, uh, not entirely optimal shop he worked. “Our goal was each machine capable of operating independently from all the others.” He shares some of the standardizations and monitoring they put in place. I was especially pleased by: “Our time was precious, and that’s the case in any enterprise situation. “; and, the 20/80 reference.

Tim Peters: TSQL2sday #70 – Consistency, consistancy, consestency. Tim rightly points out another human aspect of enterprise management: the tendency of people to vary in their dilligence. I was especially pleased by: “…being thrown into the tank containing sharks with frickin’ laser beams on their heads.”

Chris Sommer: TSQL2SDAY #70: Strategies for managing an enterprise.  This, my friends, is a great paragraph: “I think being an enterprise has more to do with the quality than quantity or size. When I think of an enterprise I think of stability. I think of standards. I think of change control processes and procedures. I think of scalable solutions. I think of supportability.” Chris goes on to talk SLAs, central management, and proper maintenance. I was especially pleased by: The imagery. (And of course the shout-out to our tools!)

Derik Hammer: Policy Based Management Templates – TSQL2sDay #70. Derik gives some serious love to PBM, and notes, “it can be a challenge to brainstorm every best practice or policy that you would like to enforce”. This post is a great jumping off place for using PBM. I was especially pleased by: The focus. And screenshots! I adore screenshots, so I do.

Wayne Sheffield: Strategies for Managing an Enterprise. Wayne recommends consistency among instances and setup, and native SQL features. He provides recommendations and links, and even breaks down the pros and cons of popular backup and maintenance soultions. I was especially pleased by: The thoughtful tone, the thorough breakdown, recommendations and links. “Diamond Standard”. Also the beard. Beards are cool.

Dave Green posted a link, but I was unable to get the link or the site itself to work. Hoping it’s just a glitch.

Robert Pearl: T-SQL Tuesday #70 – SQL Server In the Enterprise. Robert wrote a book on the subject, so he’s good to go. He gets into some details here, providing links and scripts for taking a server inventory, discussing and some of the uses for that data. Robert likes reporting, automation, third party tools, native features, and long walks on the beach (I imagine).  I was especially pleased by: The theme, and an actual picture of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-A, rockin it old school, yo!

Jason Brimhall: One Easy Strategy for the Database Enterprise. Jason wants to show us one specific thing that’s useful in enterprise management: the extended events session system_health, and how to “push this in a more enterprise friendly direction”. I was especially pleased by: “Whether you want it to be running or not is an entirely different conversation. But by default it is running.”

Carlos Chacon: T-SQL Tuesday #70 – Managing an Enterprise. Carlos finishes off TSQL2sday with a good one. He talks about specific aspects of consistency, including a common place for oft-used scripts and scripted tools.  I was especially pleased by: “Don’t forget to script out your options as you create them through the GUI. This is a great way to start building your configuration nest egg.”

Until next time, happy days, and happy #TSQL2sday!

-Jen McCown
http://www.MidnightDBA.com/Jen

6 thoughts on “The #TSQL2sday #70 roundup

  1. Wayne Sheffield

    Jen,
    This is an excellent wrap up. I was especially pleased by your “I was especially pleased by” comment on each post, pulling in things from reading between the lines, or putting an emphasis on one line that I had glanced over when reading the post, which just added to the post . Very nice touch, and it would be nice to see other hosts pick up this in their wrap up.
    Oh… thanks for having a timely wrap up also!

  2. Pingback: BPOTW 2015-09-18 | SQL Notes From The Underground

  3. Pingback: Enterprise Strategies – A #TSQL2sDay post | SQL DBA with A Beard

  4. Pingback: 2015 T-SQL Tuesdays – T-SQL Tuesday

Comments are closed.