Be a good administrator

Below are the topics every Administrator has to keep up with.

Backup / Restore:

• Understand the backup / restore options SQL Server provides for you.

• Implement those on your databases to meet your users’ needs.

• Test those backups regularly to make sure they are good and to give you an idea of how long the restores take.

Configuration / Performance (OS):

• Understand the various types of RAID and how those can impact your performance.

• Understand how to deploy SQL Server on those RAID configurations to meet cost vs. performance.

• Understand how to measure performance on your SQL Servers (CPU, memory, disk I/O).

• Understand what can cause bottlenecks on those areas.

Configuration / Performance (SQL Server):

• Understand clustered vs. non-clustered indexes and what situations to apply them.

• Understand statistics and how to keep them up to date.

• Understand how to determine when indexes are needed and when they’re not.

• Understand how to deploy database and log files to maximize the performance of the disk.

Growth / Capacity Planning:

• Understand how to measure the growth of your databases.

• Understand how to forecast growth over time.

• Understand how to communicate your growth needs to management before it’s critical.

Security (SQL Server):

• Understand the difference between users/logins

• Understand how to determine what permissions a login has, down into each database.

• Understand ownership chaining.

• Understand how to get a user the rights that are needed, no more and no less.

Disaster recovery:

• Know how to fix corruption

• Know what to do when someone drops a table (though if you’ve done the security right, that shouldn’t be possible)

• Know how to restore to any point given your backup strategy

• Practice various scenarios so that if something does happen, you know exactly what to do.