Here’s a quick collection of additional links and resources for folks who followed along with my Protecting SQL Server Data presentation today.

ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND

First and foremost (of course) I’ve got a couple of videos for anyone interested in learning more about the basics of backups, recovery, logging, and so on. Likewise, I’ve also got some videos on best practices for when it comes to implementing disaster recovery plans, and a number of how-to videos that will walk you through the process of implementing actual backups and working through restore and recovery operations:
Backups Demystified
SQL Server Logging Essentials
SQL Server Backup Best Practices
Restoring Databases with SQL Server Management Studio
The Full Series of 15 Free Video Tutorials on SQL Server Backups

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Above and beyond the basics, we covered a lot of options and details in our session today – and if you’d like to learn a bit more about options when it comes to making your data more redundant, go ahead and give these links a stab:

Clustering:
Failover Cluster Documentation
http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/9/D/69D1FEA7-5B42-437A-B3BA-A4AD13E34EF6/SQLServer2008FailoverCluster.docx

SQL Server 2008 Failover Clustering Whitepaper
http://sqlcat.com/whitepapers/archive/2009/07/08/sql-server-2008-failover-clustering.aspx

Denny Cherry's SQL Server 2008 Clustering Articles in SQL Magazine
http://www.sqlmag.com/Article/ArticleID/102461/sql_server_102461.html
http://sqlmag.com/articles/index.cfm?articleid=100400
http://sqlmag.com/articles/index.cfm?articleid=100398

Log Shipping:
Log Shipping Overview
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms187103.aspx

Step By Step to Configuring Log Shipping
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms190640.aspx

Log Shipping Fail Over
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms191233.aspx

Log Shipping and Additional Dependencies
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms187580.aspx

Database Mirroring:

Database Mirroring Overview

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms189852.aspx

Providing High Availability with Database Mirroring
http://sqlcat.com/whitepapers/archive/2008/09/02/sql-server-replication-providing-high-availability-using-database-mirroring.aspx

Implementing Failover with Database Mirroring
http://sqlcat.com/whitepapers/archive/2007/12/16/implementing-application-failover-with-database-mirroring.aspx

Performance Best Practices for Database Mirroring
http://sqlcat.com/whitepapers/archive/2007/11/19/database-mirroring-best-practices-and-performance-considerations.aspx

Using Database Mirroring AND Log Shipping Together
http://sqlcat.com/whitepapers/archive/2008/01/21/database-mirroring-and-log-shipping-working-together.aspx

Combining Log Shipping and Replication
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms151224.aspx

Log Shipping for Reporting Purposes
Think house-boat: Log Shipping is good for HA OR Reporting. Don't try to blend both into same solution.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms189572.aspx

Books Online Overview
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms151198.aspx

Management of Replication Agents
This is where the BULK of your more ADVANCED performance and configuration options will be.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms152762.aspx

Great Resource for Replication Troubleshooting
http://www.replicationanswers.com

CONTACT

Finally, if you had some questions that weren’t answered during our brief session today, or if you think of some questions in the next few days, feel free to ping me. I’m always happy to help folks out with questions – as it’s a form of marketing and just a general way for me to stay abreast of the kinds of problems organizations are struggling with. So, if you’d like to ask a couple of questions (or if you’d like to talk to me about a potential engagement), make sure to head over to my SQL Server Consulting site or visit my contact page to drop me a line.

For visitors to my blog looking for the links/content I promised in my Power Up with SQL Server presentations, you can find the links here:

Power Up with SQL Server: SQL Server High Availability

Power Up with SQL Server: SQL Server Performance

Likewise, if you have any questions about these presentations, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

(And in case you didn’t hear, Niels Berglund was going to present these sessions but was in a serious car accident and wasn’t able to present. I sadly don’t know more than that – but hope he is doing well.)

Microsoft REALLY needs to start creating slip-stream downloads or .ISO files of SQL Server with Service Packs Rolled in.

They provide instructions on how to slip-stream Service Packs into SQL Server Installation DVDs by yourself, but, honestly, who wants to go through all of that headache. Take a look at the instructions, and you’ll see what I mean.

More importantly, that’s NOT always feasible. Right now I’m installing SQL Server on a machine for a client. Only the machine in question is a hosted/managed server. So we either had to snail-mail the installation DVD, or download the .ISO from MS according to the license agreement. Downloading is OBVIOUSLY the nicest choice, but I’m back to being stuck with a SQL Server 2008 installation DVD that doesn’t have SP1 slip-streamed in. (Likewise, if I wanted to slipstream SP1 into play by myself, I’d then have to snail-mail/FedEx the disk to the hosting company. Lame.)

Without the slipstream in place?

Well, that’s where things get seriously lame, as the process to install SQL Server 2008 on Windows Server 2008 R2 is cheesy:

A) Install Service Pack 1 for SQL Server 2008. The installer will install a bunch of needed files, then will ‘barf’ when it doesn’t find a SQL Server instance to patch.

B) Install SQL Server 2008.

C) Now install SQL Server 2008 SP1.

If you don’t go that route, you won’t be able to install the patch, and your SQL Server won’t run (as J.D. Wade points out in this blog post).

Call me crazy, but it would be MUCH nicer if Microsoft made SQL Server 2008 with SP1 disks/.ISOs available for download. (Especially when Windows Server 2008 R2 won’t even let you install SQL Server 2008 without SP1 – without warning/nagging you that you’re installing a version of SQL Server with known compatibility issues.)

One of the great benefits of being a DBA is that you can end up with COOL ‘code names.’

For example, back in my day as a Production DBA at Coldwater Creek, I was known as “The White Camel”.

Sounds powerful and mysterious no?

The Secret behind “The White Camel”
In Perl-Land, if you’re a White Camel, that means you’re a badass. I’d like to think I’m a badass too, but my the story behind my ‘code name’ is a bit more simplistic.

One day a CWC employee was trying to figure out what they’d need to do to gain access to a report or some data. So they asked a co-worker. The conversation went something like this:

Employee: Hey, what do I need to do to gain access to the such and such report?
Co-Worker: You’ll need to talk to Mike Campbell about that – he controls access to all that stuff.
Employee: Who the HELL is the White Camel?

Hard to imagine something funny like that not sticking.

Question is, if you’re a DBA, do you have a code name? Hmmmm?

My personal philosophy is that when you give, you actually don't lose anything. Instead, you gain something. Sometimes putting that philosophy into practice can be tough. But I'm convinced that putting the true spirit of giving to the test is a great way to build character – and make a better world.

Consequently, my most recent DevProConnections Update was about unsung benefits of SQL Server. Specifically, I addressed three aspects of the SQL Server Community that I really love and appreciate.

Two other recent events have also helped increase my respect for the SQL Server Community as well.

Interactions with Other Consultants
Over the past few weeks I've had the opportunity to speak with a couple of other SQL Server Consultants – that I didn't know previously.

During these interactions we've talked shop a bit and/or talked about ways to lend each other a hand with various projects here and there.

In each case though, these interactions have been great – meaning not only professional but cool in the sense that it almost seemed like I was talking with instant/old friends. Which is all the more cool given that these other consultants are technically my competition.

Brent Ozar's Interviews of Pass Candidates
Another great aspect of the SQL Server Community that I've enjoyed over the past few weeks has been Brent's great series of interviews with PASS Board Member Candidates. Brent sent off a questionnaire to this year's candidates, and has been posting their replies on his blog:

• Meet PASS Board Candidate Jeremiah Peschka
• Meet PASS Board Candidate Brian Moran

Reading through these replies so far has been very enlightening – and it's great to see these candidates express similar sentiments about how great the SQL Server community is and how great it is to belong to that community.

It's always a good time to be a DBA (assuming you don't mind a healthy dose of stress here and there).

But it would appear that being a DBA right now also makes sense while the economy is in the crapper.

And, since a picture is worth a thousand words, check out the great graph by the fine folks out at indeed.com:

Maybe it's just me, but when the economy was doing well (or seemingly doing well) a while back, it seems like companies were getting rid of DBAs at alarming rates. Now it seems like companies are paying a premium to keep their data safe?

Here's a list of additional resources for attendees of the SQL Server Performance session from today's Power Up with SQL Server Event.

Feel free to contact me if you're looking for a specific resource, or had additional questions that weren't answered in our session.

Performance Background

B-Trees (Wikipedia)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-tree

SQL Server Indexing Basics
http://www.sqlteam.com/article/sql-server-indexes-the-basics
http://www.simple-talk.com/sql/learn-sql-server/sql-server-index-basics/
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa964133%28SQL.90%29.aspx

Clustered Indexes vs Heaps
http://sqlcat.com/whitepapers/archive/2007/12/16/comparing-tables-organized-with-clustered-indexes-versus-heaps.aspx

The Benefits of Clustered Indexes
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Performance+Tuning/clusterthatindex/952/

Index Fragmentation
http://www.brentozar.com/archive/2009/02/index-fragmentation-findings-part-1-the-basics/
http://www.sql-server-performance.com/articles/per/index_fragmentation_p1.aspx

BookMark Lookups
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Performance+Tuning/bookmarklookups/1899/
http://sqlblog.com/blogs/linchi_shea/archive/2008/07/06/performance-impact-bookmark-lookup-is-expensive-even-in-memory.aspx

Performance Troubleshooting

Generic KB for Performance Troubleshooting

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=298475

Troubleshooting SQL Server 2008 Performance Problems
http://sqlcat.com/whitepapers/archive/2009/04/14/troubleshooting-performance-problems-in-sql-server-2008.aspx

Troubleshooting SQL Server 2005 Performance Problems

http://sqlcat.com/whitepapers/archive/2007/11/19/troubleshooting-performance-problems-in-sql-server-2005.aspx

Performance Monitor

Setting up Traces (on Win2000,2003)
http://www.sqlserveraudits.com/instructions/perfmon.aspx

Trace Templates
http://www.sqlserveraudits.com/instructions/PerfmonTraceTemplates.zip

Analyzing Performance Counters
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms998579.aspx
Distilled version of above counters:
http://www.sqlserveraudits.com/instructions/PerformanceCounters.doc

SQL Server Profiler

Using SQL Server Profiler
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms187929.aspx
http://www.sql-server-performance.com/tips/sql_server_profiler_tips_p1.aspx

Establishing a baseline
http://www.sqlserveraudits.com/instructions/BaseLine.sql.txt

Finding Top Offenders
http://www.sqlserveraudits.com/instructions/TopOffenders.sql.txt

ClearTrace
http://www.cleardata.biz/cleartrace/

Index Tuning Problems

SARGability
http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/dang/archive/2009/03/07/Low-Hanging-Fruit-of-Sargable-Expressions.aspx
http://www.sqlmag.com/articles/index.cfm?articleid=99148&

Index Selectivity
http://www.sql-server-performance.com/articles/per/index_not_equal_p1.aspx

Index Selectivity and Column Order
http://sqlserverpedia.com/wiki/Index_Selectivity_and_Column_Order

Here's a list of additional resources for attendees of the SQL Server High Availability session from the Power Up with SQL Server event.

Feel free to contact me if you're looking for a specific resource, or had additional questions that weren't answered in our session.

Decreasing Down Time

SQL Server Enterprise Edition
http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/editions-compare.aspx

Partial Database Availability
http://sqlcat.com/whitepapers/archive/2007/11/21/partial-database-availability.aspx

Moving Logins for Log Shipping and other HA needs
http://www.sqlservervideos.com/video/copying-and-moving-sql-server-logins/

SQL Server Clustering

Stretch Clusters
http://blogs.technet.com/rob/archive/2009/03/15/sql-server-2005-multi-site-clustering-with-windows-server-2008.aspx

Multi-Site Clusters
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/failover-clustering-multisite.aspx

Failover Cluster Documentation
http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/9/D/69D1FEA7-5B42-437A-B3BA-A4AD13E34EF6/SQLServer2008FailoverCluster.docx

SQL Server 2008 Failover Clustering Whitepaper
http://sqlcat.com/whitepapers/archive/2009/07/08/sql-server-2008-failover-clustering.aspx

Denny Cherry's SQL Server 2008 Clustering Articles in SQL Magazine
http://www.sqlmag.com/Article/ArticleID/102461/sql_server_102461.html
http://sqlmag.com/articles/index.cfm?articleid=100400
http://sqlmag.com/articles/index.cfm?articleid=100398

SQL Server Log Shipping

Log Shipping Overview
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms187103.aspx

Step By Step to Configuring Log Shipping
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms190640.aspx

Log Shipping Fail Over
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms191233.aspx

Log Shipping and Additional Dependencies
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms187580.aspx

SQL Server Database Mirroring

Database Mirroring Overview
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms189852.aspx

Providing High Availability with Database Mirroring
http://sqlcat.com/whitepapers/archive/2008/09/02/sql-server-replication-providing-high-availability-using-database-mirroring.aspx

Implementing Failover with Database Mirroring
http://sqlcat.com/whitepapers/archive/2007/12/16/implementing-application-failover-with-database-mirroring.aspx

Performance Best Practices for Database Mirroring
http://sqlcat.com/whitepapers/archive/2007/11/19/database-mirroring-best-practices-and-performance-considerations.aspx

Using Database Mirroring AND Log Shipping Together
http://sqlcat.com/whitepapers/archive/2008/01/21/database-mirroring-and-log-shipping-working-together.aspx

Combining Log Shipping and Replication
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms151224.aspx

Log Shipping for Reporting Purposes
Think house-boat: Log Shipping is good for HA OR Reporting. Don't try to blend both into same solution.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms189572.aspx

SQL Server Replication

Books Online Overview
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms151198.aspx

Management of Replication Agents
This is where the BULK of your more ADVANCED performance and configuration options will be.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms152762.aspx

Great Resource for Replication Troubleshooting
http://www.replicationanswers.com

Here's a list of additional resources for attendees of my SQL Server Virtualization Session. Feel free to contact me if anything you were hoping to find here isn't listed.

There were also lots of questions towards the end of this session – if I wasn't able to answer your question, just contact me directly.

Virtualization Background

Demystifying SQL Server Virtualization
http://www.sqlmag.com/Article/ArticleID/99841/sql_server_99841.html

SQL Server Virtualization FAQs
http://www.sqlmag.com/Article/ArticleID/97264/SQL_Server_Virtualization_FAQs.html

HyperVisors (Wikipedia)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypervisor

Hardware Assisted Virtualization
http://virtualizationreview.com/articles/2009/01/01/hardwareassisted-virtualization.aspx

Hyper-V vs VMware
(though published earlier this year, this article is already out of date)
http://searchservervirtualization.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid94_gci1346926,00.html

SQL Server 2008 Virtualization Page
http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/virtualization.aspx

Virtualization Benefits

VMware's vSphere 4 and SQL Server
http://blogs.vmware.com/performance/2009/06/sql-sever-performance-on-vsphere.html
http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/perf_vsphere_sql_scalability.pdf

VMware Marketing about Virtualization/SQL Server Benefits
http://www.vmware.com/solutions/business-critical-apps/sql/resources.html

Microsoft Marketing about Virtualization/SQL Server Benefits
http://blogs.technet.com/dataplatforminsider/archive/2009/09/02/microsoft-virtualization-best-choices-for-sql-server.aspx

Virtualization Concerns

Microsoft's Official Support statement for Virtualized SQL Server
http://support.microsoft.com/KB/956893

Detailed Licensing Information from Microsoft
http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2005/en/us/Special-Considerations.aspx

Less Detailed Licensing (but still overly complex)
http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/c/c/6ccc82b3-d254-4cb7-bada-62a720ae4598/Licensing_Microsoft_Server_Products_in_Virtual_Environments.doc

Performance Monitoring/Tuning

Performance Monitoring on VMware Guests
http://sqlblog.com/blogs/rick_heiges/archive/2009/06/03/perfmon-for-vmware-esx.aspx

Performance Monitoring on Hyper-V Guests
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc768535%28BTS.10%29.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/tvoellm/archive/2009/04/23/monitoring-hyper-v-performance.aspx

Stress Testing

SQLIO
Stupid Name. Fantastic tool (one that I recommended for SQL Mag's recent list of free tools)
http://www.microsoft.com/DOWNLOADS/details.aspx?familyid=9A8B005B-84E4-4F24-8D65-CB53442D9E19&displaylang=en

IOMeter
Not a bad tool – harder to set up and use than SQLIO though
http://www.iometer.org/

Memory Testing
As Linchi points out: data is old/dated. But the concepts here are great.
http://sqlblog.com/blogs/linchi_shea/archive/2009/07/29/performance-impact-memory-effectiveness-of-virtualization.aspx 

Virtualized IO

SQL Server and SAN Interactions
http://blogs.msdn.com/joesack/archive/2009/01/28/sql-server-and-hba-queue-depth-mashup.aspx

SQL Server, SANs, and Virtualization
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/SAN/65101/

VMware Guidance on SAN Design/Implementation
(a bit dated, but concepts are still great)
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_san_design_deploy.pdf

SQL Server Best Practices

Best Practices Home
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/bb671432.aspx

Predeployment IO Best Practices
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc966412.aspx

SQL Server on Hyper-V Best Practices and Performance Recommendations
http://sqlcat.com/whitepapers/archive/2008/10/03/running-sql-server-2008-in-a-hyper-v-environment-best-practices-and-performance-recommendations.aspx

Performance Best Practices for vSphere 4.0
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/Perf_Best_Practices_vSphere4.0.pdf

Microsoft SQL Server and VMware Virtual Infrastructure (Best Practices)
http://www.vmware.com/resources/techresources/10002

SQL Server Performance in VMware 3
http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/resources/sql_server_performance_vi3_wp.pdf

I love that you can script Publications for SQL Server Replication. I find that this provides a really good way to 'back up' all of your settings in case you need to re-initialize, make any big changes, or run into any problems – because serialized configuration details are tons easier to manage in the form of a script than trying to re-create a replication topology by virtue of remembering all of the options and configuration details that you specified (sometimes up to a few months) earlier on.

I also find that the UI and wizards used to set up publications also don't provide enough control or detail. But, I don't like generating entire publications from hand either. So generating basic publication details with SQL Server Management Studio and then outputting those details to script is an ideal way to get me 90% of where I need to be. And then I can just modify the generated scripts as needed.

One thing I don't like though, is that these generated scripts suffer from one-line-itis – in the sense that SSMS generates scripts with entire calls to Replication sprocs on a single line. Which can be a total pain to sort through when you're dealing with sprocs that have 10, 20, or more parameters.

Accordingly, a trick I use when playing around with SSMS generated scripts (not just replication scripts either) is to use poor-man's reformatting. And to do that, I just do a Find and Replace, specify that I want to use Regular Expressions, and then tell it to push the start of every parameter on to its own line – by replacing the literal text of @ with an @-sign preceeded by a carriage return and a tab – resulting in instantly formatted text. Or, as you can see from the screenshot below, I just replace \@ with \n\t\@.

Find and Replace:

After: