Today is the second Monday of June and guess what I didn’t publish last week? That’s right, there wasn’t an update and reminder to the SQL Server Monthly checklist. Not a big deal, of course, I was at TechEd with about 10,000 other people, talking about indexing SQL Server.
Fortunately, for me, waiting a week to talk about the checklist and provide an update isn’t a huge issue. No servers were harmed and no users were affected. I had considered having a guest author write the post, but didn’t get around to it. Though in the future it might be good to get a backup for the checklist. Unfortunately, for you, the SQL Serve DBA, skipping the checklist or not having a backup can lead to problems.
As DBAs, we are entrusted with ensuring that our data platforms are always running as they should. Especially, running as our managers and users are expecting. We need to make certain that backups, patches, and performance either continue to execute as they have in the past or that they are improving. If not, we are tasked with knowing when things are deviating from historical behavior and mitigating those deviations.
The question for you today is, did you check your SQL Server environment this month? If not, why not? If you are sick or on vacation, is there a backup to make sure that the environment is running as expected? If you don’t already have your own checklist, check out the SQL Server Monthly Checklist that I provide on this blog. It covers most everything that should be checked. If you see anything missing from that list, please leave a comment on this post. And if there are good resources out there that should be included on the list – share those as well.
Checklist Updates
There are just a couple changes to the checklist since last month, these updates include:
- Added cumulative update for SQL Server 2012 SP1
- Added cumulative update for SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1
- Added cumulative update for SQL Server 2008 SP3
If you have time to take a look at it, the SQL Server 2012 Product Guide to see how you can use SQL Server in your environment.
SOMETHING MISSING?
Is there something missing in this checklist or with the pages that has been overlooked? Any cool links that would aid in the review of your SQL Server environments? If so, leave a comment below and I’ll take a look.
