This is a quick follow up to my last post – Scripting/Automation for DBAs. In addition to what that post covered, it’s important to think about what you script/automate and what you don’t. My picks for what absolutely must be automated include:
- Backups
- Reorgs
- Runstats
In addition, I also automate/script:
- Clean up of the diag log, notify log, and the diag path
- Retention of transaction logs
- Periodic snapshots writing data to disk or to tables
- A script to check maintenance basics and catch failures of other scripts (I check reorgs within 30 days, runstats within 7 days, and backups within 7 days)
- Tracking table sizes over time
- Looking for unexpected database changes
- Monitoring – instance up, database connect, HADR OK, log file saturation, etc – through the tool my company uses for enterprise monitoring
- Data pruning – deleting obsolete data on a daily basis
- Configuration gathering – getting basic configuration information written out for disaster recovery
I have some data refreshes that are also scripted, though not scheduled – the developers can execute them when desired. I’ve never been a fan of scripting actual database restores that are used for data refreshes between environments.
What do you script and what do you not script and why?
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