Crisis Mode Burnout and SQL Server Tips

Ever have one of those weeks where everything is a crisis or you are in “alert” mode all week? It is pretty draining. The worst part about it is, nothing else gets done, things fall behind, etc. Lesson learned: if you have a sql database and you are seeing tons of connections and cannot find the root cause, do not run sql profiler – it just makes it worse.
As for working with databases, especially SQL, you need to monitor connections, cpu, db size, transactions, IO and you also need to reorg your indexes and update your statistics. That along with verified backups, and you should be off to a good start. Also logging failed logins and even successfull logins (sometimes) is a good thing.

There are alot of tools to assist as well (Qwest, Idera, Sql Delta, Reg Gate’s Suite, etc) – but first you need to know how to use the built in tools and things that come with SQL Server itself (profiler, watching processes, dbcc commands, and more).

Back to the burnout – if you get to the point where its non-stop crisis mode, once it’s over – go and party 🙂