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| | The Math on Automation I wrote a piece on automation and time savings, and of course, Derik Hammer had to point out another post and xkcd cartoon that splashes some reality on automation. I've included it below, and certainly there are some good points made in the cartoon. It is incredibly easy to underestimate the amount of time it takes to complete a software project, especially when you include maintenance. Make no mistake about it, scripting little tasks and adding code into SQL Agent jobs is building software. Any challenges with software would apply here.  The decision to undertake automation shouldn't be strictly made on the math of time savings. There are a number of other gains to consider. The post linked above notes that the fact that interruptions can be minimized through automation can be very valuable. I know many people discount the cost of disruptions, but they can be high, especially for knowledge work. This reason alone might be worth spending time on automation. I feel that building some automated processes is a great way to actually practice skills you might use elsewhere. Automating tasks is practical, and even if the exact method isn't a technology you regularly engage in, the mental practice of working through a problem and developing a solution is valuable. Just engaging your brain on a problem can be a good use of some time. Those people that have followed the ideas in DevOps for years know that one of the main powers of automation is consistency and repeatability. We know that humans are bad at being consistent and reliable, and those are the places we should use computers. Even if the time savings don't directly add up, I'm sure the chance of you breaking something, forgetting a step, or even neglecting a task are likely work a little bit of automation time in your job. You don't want to get caught up cerating a large side project to automate something, but little scripts to save time are definitely valuable. Steve Jones from SQLServerCentral.comJoin the debate, and respond to today's editorial on the forums |
| The Voice of the DBA Podcast Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 2.8 MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and LibSyn.  The Voice of the DBA podcast features music by Everyday Jones. No relation, but I stumbled on to them and really like the music.  |
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| | |  | Hugo Kornelis from SQLServerCentral.com n this level, we will focus on optimization techniques to apply while building the nonclustered columnstore index, which is available in all versions of SQL Server from 2012 up. More » |
 | Additional Articles from SQLPerformance.com Whenever a query is executed in SQL Server, its execution plan, as well as some useful execution data are placed into the plan cache for future use. This information is a treasure trove of metrics that can allow some very useful insight into your server’s performance and resource consumption - Ed Pollack shares some useful queries to start utilizing it. More » |
 | Press Release from Redgate When a SQL Server database is operating smoothly and performing well, there is no need to be particularly aware of the transaction log, beyond ensuring that every database has an appropriate backup regime and restore plan in place. When things go wrong, however, a DBA's reputation depends on a deeper understanding of the transaction log, both what it does, and how it works. More » |
 | Anthony Nocentino from SQLServerCentral Blogs In my opinion one of the key features of SQL Server 2016 is the rebuilt and optimized log redo mechanism... More » |
| | Kenneth Fisher from SQLServerCentral Blogs Hey, I need sysadmin access to ServerA. Ok. Why do you need sysadmin? Well I need to be able to read and... More » |
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| | | Today's Question (by Steve Jones): The SSIS Term Extraction Transformation can work with which languages? |
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| Yesterday's Question of the Day |
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| | | Haden Kingsland (theflyingdba) from SQLServerCentral.com This procedure using OLE object calls to obtain server disk space values and writes them to a table. It then creates an HTML report based on the contents of the table and then , via a SQL Agent job, sends out colour coded emails relating to how much drive space is left... this is very handy!!!! The script in the article is an end to end setup for this procedure, and creates the table, the 2 stored procedures and the related SQL Agent jobs. You will need to change it to suit your environment and change all values within the <> brackets to your own. As always, this should be run in test first, but once you are happy with it, it provides a great tool in your selection of scripts and automated administration procedures to allow you to know what is going on with server disk space. More »
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| Database Pros Who Need Your Help |
| Here's a few of the new posts today on the forums. To see more, visit the forums.
Update Trigger - Keep Old value unchanged for a column - using UPDATED and DELETED temp tables, how can I override the new value and keep the old value for a... Default constraints OR INSERT trigger for Audit columns (create date time/user) - Which is the best practice to implement in audit columns for create datetime and create user, INSERT trigger or default...
Is this possible - Here's what I'm trying to accomplish....I'm pulling week to date sales data (ex. if I were to run it tomorrow... 2 SQL Tracefiles on startup - Hi Guys I have 2 trace jobs running on start up 1 is the defailt trace file, the other tracefile I cannot... Dealing with large tables (Financial transactions) - Hi, We have in our production database a large table that is storing financial transactions, currently the table has about 90mlns... Cannot drop the table 'TABLE' because at least part of the table resides on an offline filegroup. - Hello all, I am checking to see if this is even something that can be done. I have a non-prod db that... Unable to start SQLAgent - MSDB is Read-Only - I am unable to start the SQLAgent service. It is reporting that MSDB is read-only. I have checked in SQL... Free eBook today: SQL Server 2012 with PowerShell V3 Cookbook - [url=https://www.packtpub.com/packt/offers/free-learning]https://www.packtpub.com/packt/offers/free-learning[/url] Bit of a "Newbie" question. Compare and join databases. - Hello all, greetings from a cold-winter Sweden. I have a problem that i need help with, tried to seach the forum...
Add two columns to make one total - okay guys, I am stuck. I have two columns that I need to add and make one total for a... Getting the error "Maximum stored procedure, function, trigger, or view nesting level exceeded" - I have a SSRS report when generated, getting the error Server: Msg 217, Level 16, State 1, Line 1 Maximum stored procedure,...
subtracting a case statement result from a Convert(char(8) result - Hello, I am struggling to get a case statement result to be subtracted from another result in the same format.I want... Split Multiple Times - Hello I have a simple problem, that i can solve easily with help of cursors, but i want to know if... Move to new row - I'm having issue to move data to new row for my txt output. sample data resultA resultB resultC resultD chicago ID123 20pax ID123 austria... logical and physical file names of all databases - Is there a query or sp that I can pull all databases on the server along with their logical file...
How many IP address include in 2 node active -passive cluster - Hi, How many IP address include in 2 node active -passive cluster ..... i answered Five ........2 for private network 2 for...
Rebuild Index Task doesn't completes in Maintenance Plan - Hi , I am fairly new to SQL Server Administration. My maintenance plan was running fine with rebuild index task but for...
SSIS package creation with txt file having multiple select statements - Hi, I have a TXT File with 20 Select statements. Requirement is Execute each Select statement and Email the output in CSV...
How to Pass a List of DatabaseNames to the "Backup Database" Task - Hi, I try to Backup Specific Databases with the DatabaseBackup Task. I thought i pass a List of Database Names to...
Abstract: Tech Writing for Techies - Wanted to run a possible presentation idea past everyone, and see what people think. "Tech Writing for Techies: A Primer" Technologists, in... |
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