|
|
|
Are The Search Engines Censoring The Internet?
Every single day I surf through about a dozen sites, looking for interesting articles and message board posts. I do this for many reasons: for my job, which requires that I stay up-to-date on current technologies, and for my hobby, which allows...
Build The Path and They Will Come
Your profit is directly related to the amount of sales you generate. Your sales are directly related to the number of visitors you get to your website. Your visitor traffic is directly related to your web presence. Your web presence is the quantity...
Intellectual property forums make $100 billion industry accessible to innovators
The intellectual property transfer market is now estimated to be worth over $100 billion. If you have a new idea, an invention, a new art or craft, you may be able to license it or sell it for millions of dollars. Many Fortune 500 companies are now...
Web Store - Why Do You Need One?
Internet has opened a new era of business opportunities. Each day, thousands of new consumers are joining the Internet. More and more companies are adopting Internet as their primary sales and distribution channel. According to Forrester Research...
When Ya Give, You're Gonna Receive...Somehow
This article may only be reproduced in its entirety, including the resource box and subscription information electronically or in print. A courtesy copy of your publication would be nice, too! When Ya Give, You're Gonna Receive...Somehow by Dan...
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Seven Deadly Habits of a DBA... and how to cure them
Calling widespread bad habits in database administration "deadly" may seem extreme. However, when you consider the critical nature of most data, and just how damaging data loss or corruption can be to a corporation, "deadly" seems pretty dead-on.
Although these habits are distressingly common among DBAs, they are curable with some shrewd management intervention. What follows is a list of the seven habits we consider the deadliest, along with some ideas on how to eliminate them.
Habit #1. THE LEAP OF FAITH: "We have faith in our backup."
Blind faith can be endearing, but not when it comes backing up a database. Backups should be trusted only as far as they have been tested and verified.
Cures:
Have your DBAs verify that the backup is succeeding regularly, preferably using a script that notifies them if there's an issue.
Maintain a backup to your backup. DBAs should always use at least two backup methods. A common technique is to use those old-fashioned exports as a backup to the online backups.
Resource test recoveries as often as is practical. An early sign that your DBA team is either overworked or not prioritizing correctly is having a quarter go by without a test recovery. Test recoveries confirm that your backup strategy is on track, while allowing your team to practice recovery activities so they can handle them effectively when the time comes.
Habit #2. GREAT EXPECTATIONS: "It will work the way we expect it to. Let's go ahead."
Although not user friendly in the traditional sense, Oracle is very power-user friendly— once you've been working with it for a while, you develop an instinct for the way things "should" work. Although that instinct is often right, one of the most dangerous habits any DBA can possess is an assumption that Oracle will "just work" the way it should.
Cures:
Inculcate a "practice, practice, practice" mentality throughout the organization. DBAs need to rehearse activities in the safe sandbox of a test environment that's designed to closely mimic the behaviour of the production system. The organization needs to allow the time and money for them to do so.
Pair inexperienced DBAs with senior ones whenever possible—or take them under your own wing. New DBAs tend to be fearless, but learning from someone else's experience can help instill some much needed paranoia.
Review the plans for everything. It's amazing how often DBAs say, "I've done that a hundred times, I don't need a plan." If they're heading into execution mode, they absolutely need a plan.
Habit #3. LAISSEZ-FAIRE ADMINISTRATION: "We don't need to monitor the system. The users always let us know when something's wrong."
If you depend on the users to inform the DBA team that there's a problem, it may already be too late.
Cures:
Install availability and performance monitoring systems so that issues are identified and resolved before they cause service-affecting failures.
Avoid post-release software issues by working with developers and testers to ensure that all production-ready software is stable and high-performance.
Habit #4. THE MEMORY TEST: "We'll remember how this happened, and what we did to get things going again."
It may seem impossible that a DBA team would forget a massive procedure that took them weeks to get right, and yet it happens all the time. In order to prevent recurring mistakes and take advantage of gained experience, documentation is essential.
Cures:
Require that your DBAs maintain a comprehensive documentation library and activity diary, including a significant level of rationale, syntax, and workflow detail.
Provide your team with groupware on your intranet so that these documents become searchable in an emergency.
Enforce the discipline of documentation and check it periodically. Ask your DBAs: When was this tablespace created, by
whom, and with what SQL? What tasks were performed on a particular day? If they can't answer quickly, you'll know they've gone back to relying on memory.
Habit #5. THE BLAME GAME: "Don't look at me, it's the developer's fault that SQL is in production"
Some DBAs have a real "us versus them" mentality when it comes to developers in their organization. They see themselves not as facilitators helping the developers develop quality code from a database standpoint, but rather as guardians who prevent poor-quality code from making it into production. This might seem like semantics, but a confrontational relationship between developers and DBAs results in a lack of developer initiative and significant slowdowns in release cycles.
Cures:
Select DBAs who understand it's their responsibility to work as an integrated team with the developers they support.
Cultivate a team attitude by structuring continuous DBA involvement in every project rather than at review milestones.
Consider assigning an individual DBA in a developer support role. If it's clearly in the job description, there's more motivation to do it well.
Habit #6. THE SOLO ACT: "I know what I'm doing and don't need any help."
Database administration is increasingly complex and even the most senior DBAs can't possibly know every last detail. DBAs have different specialties, which need to be culled and utilized. When DBAs feel like they know, or should know, everything, they don't ask questions and miss out on valuable knowledge they could be gaining from others.
Cures:
Foster a teamwork culture where it's acceptable for DBAs to admit they don't know the answer and to ask for help.
Encourage your DBAs to seek out an outside peer group as a forum for brainstorming and testing their assumptions. No single person can match the expertise and experience of even a relatively small group.
Provide a safety net of tech resources such as reference materials, courses, and outside experts or consultants on call.
Habit #7. TECHNO-LUST: "Things would work so much better if only we had..."
DBAs are often on top of the latest technology, which can help them do a superlative job. But when the desire for new technology causes DBAs to recommend unnecessary hardware purchases or software add-ons, costs tend to skyrocket quickly—as do problems.
Cures:
Never upgrade your hardware infrastructure without first exhausting all tuning opportunities. Remember, ten years ago enormous enterprises were run on servers one-tenth the capacity—all thanks to necessity and skill.
Never consent to using advanced or new features until you're well aware of the ongoing maintenance commitment and resulting costs.
Watch out for DBA support software that presents friendly GUI interfaces for difficult tasks. This type of interface allows a beginner DBA to act as an intermediate DBA under certain circumstances, but simultaneously prevents that beginner from learning the actual skills behind the tasks. Moreover, these tools tend to hide real risks from the DBA, making potentially damaging activities as easy as point-and-click.
Whether it takes a twelve-step program or one tiny adjustment, all of these deadly DBA habits can be kicked. Of course, the first step is recognizing the problem. By starting with this list and doing a careful inventory of the successes and failures in your team's database administration, you'll be well on your way to finding a cure.
About the Author
Since the company's founding Paul has been Pythian's key trouble-shooter for our toughest technical challenges. Before launching Pythian, he worked as an Oracle consultant bringing his vast expertise to various companies across North America.
Paul has been an active participant in the Internet since 1989 and has worked extensively on complex data environments and ERP implementations.
|
|
|
|
|
| Gentoo Forums :: Index |
| Discussion forums for topics around the distribution, Linux applications, installation, administration, portage, frequently asked questions. |
| forums.gentoo.org |
|
| Readers' Opinions - New York Times |
| Books Reading Group. Readers are discussing “All Aunt Hagar’s Children,” Edward P. Jones’s new short story collection. More Books Forums ... |
| www.nytimes.com |
|
| Ubuntu Forums |
| This is a discussion help and support forum for Ubuntu Linux. |
| ubuntuforums.org |
|
| Joomla! Community Forum - Index |
| Joomla! Forum - The Joomla Community. Support, discussion and interaction with the Core Team. |
| forum.joomla.org |
|
| Internet forum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
| A typical Internet forum discussion, with common elements such as emoticons, ... Like other forms of online communication, Internet forums are home to many ... |
| en.wikipedia.org |
|
| Java Technology Forums |
| Online discussion forums offering help for users in solving issues. Includes FAQs, and links to other Sun technical databases. |
| supportforum.sun.com |
|
| Adobe - Forums |
| Share questions, suggestions, and information about Adobe graphics products. |
| www.adobe.com |
|
| WoW Forums -> Forum Index |
| Read our Introduction to the Forums. This includes information about getting ... blizzard provides the World of Warcraft community forums for its players to ... |
| forums.worldofwarcraft.com |
|
| MySQL AB :: MySQL Forums |
| Forum to discuss the sample database included with MySQL ... The main discussion forum for MySQL. Please use specialized forums for specific topics. ... |
| forums.mysql.com |
|
| SitePoint Forums: Resources, Design, HTML, CSS, PHP, ASP, MySQL ... |
| Webmaster Forums for Design, CSS, XHTML, PHP, Ruby, JavaScript, Affiliate Marketing, ASP.NET, Promotion. |
| www.sitepoint.com |
|
| Delphi Forums |
| Offers free and paid forum hosting. The paid offer is ad-free. |
| www.delphiforums.com |
|
| Home - MozillaZine Forums |
| Search the forums for others who may be having the same issues you are. You can also browse the sticky'd posts at the top of the forum for the product ... |
| forums.mozillazine.org |
|
| Web Hosting, Free Web Hosting and Web Tools from Bravenet.com. |
| Maintain a direct mailing list. Message Forum Host your own online discussions. Vote Caster Perform a multi-question poll. Web Poll Perform a quick poll. ... |
| www.bravenet.com |
|
| Forums | NewsTalk |
| The Detroit News Online does not tolerate offensive language in its forums. The News will kill offensive posts. Participants can and will be denied access ... |
| info.detnews.com |
|
| osCommerce Community Support Forums |
| Official community support forums for the osCommerce project. |
| forums.oscommerce.com |
|
| The GardenWeb Forums - GardenWeb |
| The GardenWeb Forums comprise the largest community of gardeners on the Internet. ... If this is your first visit to the forums, you might want to visit our ... |
| forums.gardenweb.com |
|
| AnandTech |
| Is server configuration a pain? DSL or Cable Modem giving you fits? Get your questions answered and your topics discussed in the AnandTech Networking Forum. ... |
| forums.anandtech.com |
|
| Chronicle Forums - Index |
| Chronicle Forums - Index. ... Talk online about graduate-school life in our new forum. ... Forum Stats, 220919 Posts in 17109 Topics by 3306 Members. ... |
| chronicle.com |
|
| Forums | drupal.org |
| Try searching the forums first or a specific project's bug reports. Pre installation questions. Is Drupal a viable solution for my website? ... |
| drupal.org |
|
| Dev Shed Forums - Open Source web development |
| Dev Shed Forums - over 195246 members on our Dev Shed forums. |
| forums.devshed.com |
|
|