Search Results

Search found 1313 results on 53 pages for 'dba in ua'.

Page 3/53 | < Previous Page | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12  | Next Page >

  • Traits of a DBA - Part One – The Technical Side

    What does it take to become a database administrator, or what kinds of traits should I be looking for when I am hiring a DBA. Those traits can be summarized it two categories: Technical and Personal. In this article, Greg Larsen discusses the technical traits a DBA should have. Free eBook - Performance Tuning with DMVsThis free eBook provides you with the core techniques and scripts to monitor your query execution, index usage, session and transaction activity, disk IO, and more. Download the free eBook.

    Read the article

  • ?????????DBA & Developer Day ??????????????!

    - by OTN-J Master
    ???????????????? 11?20???????????????????????????????????Oracle DBA & Developer Day 2012????????·???????????????????????????6???????24???????????????WMV???MP3?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? >> Oracle DBA & Developer Day 2012?????????????? ???OTN??????????????????????????????????????????OTN??????????????????????????????Oracle??????????!?????????????

    Read the article

  • What Counts For a DBA – Decisions

    - by Louis Davidson
    It’s Friday afternoon, and the lead DBA, a very talented guy, is getting ready to head out for two well-earned weeks of vacation, with his family, when this error message pops up in his inbox: Msg 211, Level 23, State 51, Line 1. Possible schema corruption. Run DBCC CHECKCATALOG. His heart sinks. It’s ten…no eight…minutes till it’s time to walk out the door. He glances around at his coworkers, competent to handle many problems, but probably not up to the challenge of fixing possible database corruption. What does he do? After a few agonizing moments of indecision, he clicks shut his laptop. He’ll just wait and see. It was unlikely to come to anything; after all, it did say “possible” schema corruption, not definite. In that moment, his fate was sealed. The start of the solution to the problem (run DBCC CHECKCATALOG) had been right there in the error message. Had he done this, or at least took two of those eight minutes to delegate the task to a coworker, then he wouldn’t have ended up spending two-thirds of an idyllic vacation (for the rest of the family, at least) dealing with a problem that got consistently worse as the weekend progressed until the entire system was down. When I told this story to a friend of mine, an opera fan, he smiled and said it described the basic plotline of almost every opera or ‘Greek Tragedy’ ever written. The particular joy in opera, he told me, isn’t the warbly voiced leading ladies, or the plump middle-aged romantic leads, or even the music. No, what packs the opera houses in Italy is the drama of characters who, by the very nature of their life-experiences and emotional baggage, make all sorts of bad choices when faced with ordinary decisions, and so move inexorably to their fate. The audience is gripped by the spectacle of exotic characters doomed by their inability to see the obvious. I confess, my personal experience with opera is limited to Bugs Bunny in “What’s Opera, Doc?” (Elmer Fudd is a great example of a bad decision maker, if ever one existed), but I was struck by my friend’s analogy. If all the DBA cubicles were a stage, I think we would hear many similarly tragic tales, played out to music: “Error handling? We write our code to never experience errors, so nah…“ “Backups failed today, but it’s okay, we’ll back up tomorrow (we’ll back up tomorrow)“ And similarly, they would leave their audience gasping, not necessarily at the beauty of the music, or poetry of the lyrics, but at the inevitable, grisly fate of the protagonists. If you choose not to use proper error handling, or if you choose to skip a backup because, hey, you haven’t had a server crash in 10 years, then inevitably, in that moment you expected to be enjoying a vacation, or a football game, with your family and friends, you will instead be sitting in front of a computer screen, paying for your poor choices. Tragedies are very much part of IT. Most of a DBA’s day to day work has limited potential to wreak havoc; paperwork, timesheets, random anonymous threats to developers, routine maintenance and whatnot. However, just occasionally, you, as a DBA, will face one of those decisions that really matter, and which has the possibility to greatly affect your future and the future of your user’s data. Make those decisions count, and you’ll avoid the tragic fate of many an operatic hero or villain.

    Read the article

  • What Counts For a DBA – Depth

    - by Louis Davidson
    SQL Server offers very simple interfaces to many of its features. Most people could open up SSMS, connect to a server, write a simple query and see the results. Even several of the core DBA tasks are deceptively straightforward. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to perform a basic database backup or run a trace (even using the newfangled Extended Events!). However, appearances can be deceptive, and often times it is really important that a DBA understands not just the basics of how to perform a task, but why we do a task, and how that task works. As an analogy, consider a child walking into a darkened room. Most would know that they need to turn on the light, and how to do it, so they flick the switch. But what happens if light fails to shine forth. Most would immediately tell you that you need to consider changing the light bulb. So you hop in the car and take them to the local home store and instruct them to buy a replacement. Confronted with a 40 foot display of light bulbs, how will they decide which of the hundreds of types of bulbs, of different types, fittings, shapes, colors, power and efficiency ratings, is the right choice? Obviously the main lesson the child is going to learn this day is how to use their cell phone as a flashlight so they don’t have to ask for help the next time. Likewise, when the metaphorical toddlers who use your database server have issues, they will instinctively know something is wrong, and may even have some idea what caused it, but will have no depth of knowledge to figure out the right solution. That is where the DBA comes in and attempts to save the day. However, when one looks beneath the shiny UI, SQL Server has its own “40 foot display of light bulbs”, in the form of the tremendous number of tools and the often-bewildering amount of information they can present to the DBA, to help us find issues. Unfortunately, resorting to guesswork, to trying different “bulbs” over and over, hoping to stumble on the answer. This is where the right depth of knowledge goes a long way. If we need to write a SELECT statement, then knowing the syntax and where to find the data is not enough. Knowledge of indexes and query plans is essential. Without it, we might hit on a query that “works”, but we are basically still a user, not a programmer, because we have no real control over our platform. Is that level of knowledge deep enough? Probably not, since knowledge of the underlying metadata and structures would be very useful in helping us make sense of any query plan. Understanding the structure of an index makes the “key lookup” operator not sound like what you do when someone tapes your car key to the ceiling. So is even this level of understanding deep enough? Do we need to understand the memory architecture used to process the query? It might be a comforting level of knowledge, and will doubtless come in handy at some point, but is not strictly necessary in most cases. Beyond that lies (more or less) full knowledge of SQL language and the intricacies of every step the SQL Server engine takes to process our query. My personal theory is that, as a professional, our knowledge of a given task should extend, at a minimum, one level deeper than is strictly necessary to perform the task. Anything deeper can be left to the ridiculously smart, or obsessive, or both. As an example. tasked with storing an integer value between 0 and 99999999, it’s essential that I know that choosing an Integer over Decimal(8,0) will likely offer performance benefits. It is then useful that I also understand the value of adding a CHECK constraint, to make sure the values are valid to the desired range; and comforting that I know a little about the underlying processors, registers and computer math. Anything further, I leave to the likes of Joe Chang, whose recent blog post on the topic offers depth by the bucketful!  

    Read the article

  • High Jinks, Hi Jacks, Exceptional DBA Awards and PASS

    - by Rodney
    The countdown to PASS has counted down.  The day after tomorrow I will board a plane, like many others, on my way for the 4th year in a row to SQL PASS Summit.  The anticipation has been excruciating but luckily I have this little thing called a day job as a DBA that has kept me busy and not thinking too much about the event. Well that is not exactly true since my beautiful wife works for PASS so we get to talk about SQL from the time we wake up until late in the evening. I would not have it any other way and I feel very fortunate to be a part of this great event and to have been chosen as the Exceptional DBA Award judge also for the 4th year in a row.  This year, I will have been again tasked with presenting the award to the winner, Mr. Jeff Moden and it will be a true honor to meet him in person as I have read many of his articles on SSC and have attended his session at PASS previously.  The speech is all ready but one item remains, which will be a surprise to all who attend the party on Tuesday night in Seattle (see links below).  Let's face it, Exceptional DBAs everywhere work very hard protecting our data stores, tuning queries, mentoring, saving money, installing clusters, etc and once in a while there is time to be exceptionally non-professional and have a bit of fun. Once incident that happened this year that falls under the High Jinks category was when my network admin asked if I could Telnet into a SQL instance and see if I could make the connection through the firewall that he had just configured. I was able to establish a connection on port 1433 and it occurred to me that it would be very interesting if I could actually run T-SQL queries via a Telnet session much like you might do with an SMTP server. With that thought, I proceeded to demonstrate this could be possible by convincing my senior DBA Shawn McGehee that I was able to do so. At first he did not believe me. It shook his world view.  It was inconceivable.  What I had done, behind the scenes, of course, was to copy and rename SQLCMD.exe to Telnet.exe and used it to connect and run a simple, "Select * from sys.databases" on the SQL instance. I think if it had been anyone other than Shawn I could have extended this ruse indefinitely but he caught on within 30 seconds. It was a fun thirty seconds though. On the High Jacks side of the house, which is really merged to be SQL HACKS, I finally, after several years of struggling with how to connect to an untrusted domain like in a DMZ with a windows account in SSMS, I stumbled upon a solution that does away with the requirement to use SQL Authentication.  While "Runas" is a great command to use to run an application with a higher privileged account, I had not previously been able to figure out how to connect to the remote domain with SSMS and "Runsas". It never connected and caused a login failure every time for the remote windows domain account. Then I ran across an option for "Runas",   "/netonly".  This option postpones the login until a connection is made and only then passes the remote login you supply when you first launch SSMS with the "Runas" command. So a typical shortcut would look like: "C:\Windows\System32\runas.exe /netonly /user:remotedomain.com\rodlandrum "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Binn\VSShell\Common7\IDE\Ssms.exe" You will want to make sure the passwords are synced between the two domains, your local domain and the remote domain, otherwise you may have account lockout issues, but I have found in weeks of testing this is a stable solution. Now it is time to get ready to head for Seattle. Please, if you see me (@SQLBeat) or my wife (@Karlakay22) please run up and high five me (wait..High Jinks.High Jacks.High Fives.Need to change the title) or give me a big bear hug if you are strong enough to lift me off the ground. And if you do actually do that, I will think you are awesome and will not embarrass you by crying out for help or complaining of a broken back or sciatic nerve damage. And now the links to others who have all of the details. First, for the MVP Deep Dives 2, of which, like John, I was lucky enough to be able to participate in this year. http://www.simple-talk.com/community/blogs/johnm/archive/2011/09/29/103577.aspx And the details of the SSC party where the Exceptional DBA of 2011, Jeff Moden, will be awarded. http://www.simple-talk.com/community/blogs/rebecca_amos/archive/2011/10/05/103661.aspx   Cheers! Rodney

    Read the article

  • DBA in Space

    - by Neil Davidson
    Every now and then, you come across an idea that makes your heart jump and your skin tingle. That happened to me a few months ago, when Richard and Anthony pitched a small group of us an idea. "It's called DBA in Space", Richard said. I don't remember the rest of the pitch. "DBA in Space" is one of those phrases that's so simple, remarkable and clear that it sticks and it sticks hard. Sure, lots of people have done much hard, gritty work over the past few months to make it happen. Sure, there's...(read more)

    Read the article

  • On Adopting the Mindset of an Enterprise DBA

    Although many of the important tasks a DBA has to perform should be done 'by hand', keying in commands or using SSMS, the canny DBA with a heavy workload will always have an eye to automating routine tasks wherever possible, or using a tool. 24% of devs don’t use database source control – make sure you aren’t one of themVersion control is standard for application code, but databases haven’t caught up. So what steps can you take to put your SQL databases under version control? Why should you start doing it? Read more to find out…

    Read the article

  • Top 10 Transact-SQL Statements a SQL Server DBA Should Know

    Microsoft SQL Server is a feature rich database management system product, with an enormous number of T-SQL commands. With each feature supporting its own list of commands, it can be difficult to remember them all. MAK shares his top 10 T-SQL statements that a DBA should know. Join SQL Backup’s 35,000+ customers to compress and strengthen your backups "SQL Backup will be a REAL boost to any DBA lucky enough to use it." Jonathan Allen. Download a free trial now.

    Read the article

  • The DBA Team tackles data corruption

    Paul Randal joins the team in this instalment of the DBA Team saga. In this episode, Monte Bank is trying to cover up insider trading - using data corruption to eliminate the evidence, and a patsy DBA to take the blame. It's a great story with useful advice on how to perform thorough data recovery tasks. "A real time saver" Andy Doyle, Head of IT ServicesAndy and his team saved time by automating backup and restores with SQL Backup Pro. Find out how much time you could save. Download a free trial now.

    Read the article

  • Exciting DBA and BI role in London for fast growing startup

    - by simonsabin
    One of my clients is looking for a DBA and a BI developer. They are a very exciting dotcom company with cutting edge technology and are growing fast  A bit older than a startup but they still have that feel about them. They are based in North London and are a very nice company to work for, flexible hours, working from home. Plus they are willing to pay for the right candidate. There is at least 1 DBA and 1 BI role going. If you are interested then let me know http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/simons...(read more)

    Read the article

  • ????????CSV???????(???????)?? ~ DBA????APEX

    - by Yuichi.Hayashi
    Oracle Application Express(Oracle APEX)????????????Web????????????????DBA??????·???????????????? ?????????CSV???????(???????)??·?? DBA???????????????????Oracle Database?????CSV????????????????? 1. ???Oracle APEX(Oracle Application Express)??????????????????????????????(???????????????SQL????????????????????????????????) 2. ???????????????????????(????????)??????????????????????? ?????????????????EMP???????? 3. ???????????????? 4.?????????????? ??????????????????????????????CSV???????????? ???????????? Oracle APEX?????????????????????????????????? APEX(Oracle Application Express)????~??????????????????????

    Read the article

  • problem with sIFR 3 not displaying in IE just getting XXX

    - by user288306
    I am having a problem with sIFR 3 not displaying in IE. I get 3 larges black XXX in IE yet it displays fine in Firefox. I have checked i do have the most recent version of flash installed correctly. Here is the code on the page <div id="features"> <div id="mainmessage_advertisers"><h2>Advertisers</h2><br /><br /><h3><a href="">Reach your customers where they browse. Buy directly from top web publishers.</a></h3><br /><br /><br /><a href=""><img src="img/buyads.gif" border="0"></a></div> <div id="mainmessage_publishers"><h2>Publishers</h2><br /><br /><h3>Take control of your ad space and start generating more revenue than <u>ever before</u>.</h3><br /><br /><br /><a href=""><img src="img/sellads.gif" border="0"></a></div> </div>` Here is the code from my global.css #mainmessage_advertisers { width: 395px; height: 200px; padding: 90px 50px; border: 1px; float: left; } #mainmessage_publishers { width: 395px; height: 200px; padding: 90px 50px; float: right; } and here is what i have in my sifr.js /*********************************************************************** SIFR 3.0 (BETA 1) FUNCTIONS ************************************************************************/ var parseSelector=(function(){var _1=/\s*,\s*/;var _2=/\s*([\s>+~(),]|^|$)\s*/g;var _3=/([\s>+~,]|[^(]\+|^)([#.:@])/g;var _4=/^[^\s>+~]/;var _5=/[\s#.:>+~()@]|[^\s#.:>+~()@]+/g;function parseSelector(_6,_7){_7=_7||document.documentElement;var _8=_6.split(_1),_9=[];for(var i=0;i<_8.length;i++){var _b=[_7],_c=toStream(_8[i]);for(var j=0;j<_c.length;){var _e=_c[j++],_f=_c[j++],_10="";if(_c[j]=="("){while(_c[j++]!=")"&&j<_c.length){_10+=_c[j]}_10=_10.slice(0,-1)}_b=select(_b,_e,_f,_10)}_9=_9.concat(_b)}return _9}function toStream(_11){var _12=_11.replace(_2,"$1").replace(_3,"$1*$2");if(_4.test(_12)){_12=" "+_12}return _12.match(_5)||[]}function select(_13,_14,_15,_16){return (_17[_14])?_17[_14](_13,_15,_16):[]}var _18={toArray:function(_19){var a=[];for(var i=0;i<_19.length;i++){a.push(_19[i])}return a}};var dom={isTag:function(_1d,tag){return (tag=="*")||(tag.toLowerCase()==_1d.nodeName.toLowerCase())},previousSiblingElement:function(_1f){do{_1f=_1f.previousSibling}while(_1f&&_1f.nodeType!=1);return _1f},nextSiblingElement:function(_20){do{_20=_20.nextSibling}while(_20&&_20.nodeType!=1);return _20},hasClass:function(_21,_22){return (_22.className||"").match("(^|\\s)"+_21+"(\\s|$)")},getByTag:function(tag,_24){return _24.getElementsByTagName(tag)}};var _17={"#":function(_25,_26){for(var i=0;i<_25.length;i++){if(_25[i].getAttribute("id")==_26){return [_25[i]]}}return []}," ":function(_28,_29){var _2a=[];for(var i=0;i<_28.length;i++){_2a=_2a.concat(_18.toArray(dom.getByTag(_29,_28[i])))}return _2a},">":function(_2c,_2d){var _2e=[];for(var i=0,_30;i<_2c.length;i++){_30=_2c[i];for(var j=0,_32;j<_30.childNodes.length;j++){_32=_30.childNodes[j];if(_32.nodeType==1&&dom.isTag(_32,_2d)){_2e.push(_32)}}}return _2e},".":function(_33,_34){var _35=[];for(var i=0,_37;i<_33.length;i++){_37=_33[i];if(dom.hasClass([_34],_37)){_35.push(_37)}}return _35},":":function(_38,_39,_3a){return (pseudoClasses[_39])?pseudoClasses[_39](_38,_3a):[]}};parseSelector.selectors=_17;parseSelector.pseudoClasses={};parseSelector.util=_18;parseSelector.dom=dom;return parseSelector})(); var sIFR=new function(){var _3b=this;var _3c="sIFR-active";var _3d="sIFR-replaced";var _3e="sIFR-flash";var _3f="sIFR-ignore";var _40="sIFR-alternate";var _41="sIFR-class";var _42="sIFR-layout";var _43="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml";var _44=6;var _45=126;var _46=8;var _47="SIFR-PREFETCHED";var _48=" ";this.isActive=false;this.isEnabled=true;this.hideElements=true;this.replaceNonDisplayed=false;this.preserveSingleWhitespace=false;this.fixWrap=true;this.registerEvents=true;this.setPrefetchCookie=true;this.cookiePath="/";this.domains=[];this.fromLocal=true;this.forceClear=false;this.forceWidth=true;this.fitExactly=false;this.forceTextTransform=true;this.useDomContentLoaded=true;this.debugMode=false;this.hasFlashClassSet=false;var _49=0;var _4a=false,_4b=false;var dom=new function(){this.getBody=function(){var _4d=document.getElementsByTagName("body");if(_4d.length==1){return _4d[0]}return null};this.addClass=function(_4e,_4f){if(_4f){_4f.className=((_4f.className||"")==""?"":_4f.className+" ")+_4e}};this.removeClass=function(_50,_51){if(_51){_51.className=_51.className.replace(new RegExp("(^|\\s)"+_50+"(\\s|$)"),"").replace(/^\s+|(\s)\s+/g,"$1")}};this.hasClass=function(_52,_53){return new RegExp("(^|\\s)"+_52+"(\\s|$)").test(_53.className)};this.create=function(_54){if(document.createElementNS){return document.createElementNS(_43,_54)}return document.createElement(_54)};this.setInnerHtml=function(_55,_56){if(ua.innerHtmlSupport){_55.innerHTML=_56}else{if(ua.xhtmlSupport){_56=["<root xmlns=\"",_43,"\">",_56,"</root>"].join("");var xml=(new DOMParser()).parseFromString(_56,"text/xml");xml=document.importNode(xml.documentElement,true);while(_55.firstChild){_55.removeChild(_55.firstChild)}while(xml.firstChild){_55.appendChild(xml.firstChild)}}}};this.getComputedStyle=function(_58,_59){var _5a;if(document.defaultView&&document.defaultView.getComputedStyle){_5a=document.defaultView.getComputedStyle(_58,null)[_59]}else{if(_58.currentStyle){_5a=_58.currentStyle[_59]}}return _5a||""};this.getStyleAsInt=function(_5b,_5c,_5d){var _5e=this.getComputedStyle(_5b,_5c);if(_5d&&!/px$/.test(_5e)){return 0}_5e=parseInt(_5e);return isNaN(_5e)?0:_5e};this.getZoom=function(){return _5f.zoom.getLatest()}};this.dom=dom;var ua=new function(){var ua=navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase();var _62=(navigator.product||"").toLowerCase();this.macintosh=ua.indexOf("mac")>-1;this.windows=ua.indexOf("windows")>-1;this.quicktime=false;this.opera=ua.indexOf("opera")>-1;this.konqueror=_62.indexOf("konqueror")>-1;this.ie=false/*@cc_on || true @*/;this.ieSupported=this.ie&&!/ppc|smartphone|iemobile|msie\s5\.5/.test(ua)/*@cc_on && @_jscript_version >= 5.5 @*/;this.ieWin=this.ie&&this.windows/*@cc_on && @_jscript_version >= 5.1 @*/;this.windows=this.windows&&(!this.ie||this.ieWin);this.ieMac=this.ie&&this.macintosh/*@cc_on && @_jscript_version < 5.1 @*/;this.macintosh=this.macintosh&&(!this.ie||this.ieMac);this.safari=ua.indexOf("safari")>-1;this.webkit=ua.indexOf("applewebkit")>-1&&!this.konqueror;this.khtml=this.webkit||this.konqueror;this.gecko=!this.webkit&&_62=="gecko";this.operaVersion=this.opera&&/.*opera(\s|\/)(\d+\.\d+)/.exec(ua)?parseInt(RegExp.$2):0;this.webkitVersion=this.webkit&&/.*applewebkit\/(\d+).*/.exec(ua)?parseInt(RegExp.$1):0;this.geckoBuildDate=this.gecko&&/.*gecko\/(\d{8}).*/.exec(ua)?parseInt(RegExp.$1):0;this.konquerorVersion=this.konqueror&&/.*konqueror\/(\d\.\d).*/.exec(ua)?parseInt(RegExp.$1):0;this.flashVersion=0;if(this.ieWin){var axo;var _64=false;try{axo=new ActiveXObject("ShockwaveFlash.ShockwaveFlash.7")}catch(e){try{axo=new ActiveXObject("ShockwaveFlash.ShockwaveFlash.6");this.flashVersion=6;axo.AllowScriptAccess="always"}catch(e){_64=this.flashVersion==6}if(!_64){try{axo=new ActiveXObject("ShockwaveFlash.ShockwaveFlash")}catch(e){}}}if(!_64&&axo){this.flashVersion=parseFloat(/([\d,?]+)/.exec(axo.GetVariable("$version"))[1].replace(/,/g,"."))}}else{if(navigator.plugins&&navigator.plugins["Shockwave Flash"]){var _65=navigator.plugins["Shockwave Flash"];this.flashVersion=parseFloat(/(\d+\.?\d*)/.exec(_65.description)[1]);var i=0;while(this.flashVersion>=_46&&i<navigator.mimeTypes.length){var _67=navigator.mimeTypes[i];if(_67.type=="application/x-shockwave-flash"&&_67.enabledPlugin.description.toLowerCase().indexOf("quicktime")>-1){this.flashVersion=0;this.quicktime=true}i++}}}this.flash=this.flashVersion>=_46;this.transparencySupport=this.macintosh||this.windows;this.computedStyleSupport=this.ie||document.defaultView&&document.defaultView.getComputedStyle&&(!this.gecko||this.geckoBuildDate>=20030624);this.css=true;if(this.computedStyleSupport){try{var _68=document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0];_68.style.backgroundColor="#FF0000";var _69=dom.getComputedStyle(_68,"backgroundColor");this.css=!_69||/\#F{2}0{4}|rgb\(255,\s?0,\s?0\)/i.test(_69);_68=null}catch(e){}}this.xhtmlSupport=!!window.DOMParser&&!!document.importNode;this.innerHtmlSupport;try{var n=dom.create("span");if(!this.ieMac){n.innerHTML="x"}this.innerHtmlSupport=n.innerHTML=="x"}catch(e){this.innerHtmlSupport=false}this.zoomSupport=!!(this.opera&&document.documentElement);this.geckoXml=this.gecko&&(document.contentType||"").indexOf("xml")>-1;this.requiresPrefetch=this.ieWin||this.khtml;this.verifiedKonqueror=false;this.supported=this.flash&&this.css&&(!this.ie||this.ieSupported)&&(!this.opera||this.operaVersion>=8)&&(!this.webkit||this.webkitVersion>=412)&&(!this.konqueror||this.konquerorVersion>3.5)&&this.computedStyleSupport&&(this.innerHtmlSupport||!this.khtml&&this.xhtmlSupport)};this.ua=ua;var _6b=new function(){function capitalize($){return $.toUpperCase()}this.normalize=function(str){if(_3b.preserveSingleWhitespace){return str.replace(/\s/g,_48)}return str.replace(/(\s)\s+/g,"$1")};this.textTransform=function(_6e,str){switch(_6e){case "uppercase":str=str.toUpperCase();break;case "lowercase":str=str.toLowerCase();break;case "capitalize":var _70=str;str=str.replace(/^\w|\s\w/g,capitalize);if(str.indexOf("function capitalize")!=-1){var _71=_70.replace(/(^|\s)(\w)/g,"$1$1$2$2").split(/^\w|\s\w/g);str="";for(var i=0;i<_71.length;i++){str+=_71[i].charAt(0).toUpperCase()+_71[i].substring(1)}}break}return str};this.toHexString=function(str){if(typeof (str)!="string"||!str.charAt(0)=="#"||str.length!=4&&str.length!=7){return str}str=str.replace(/#/,"");if(str.length==3){str=str.replace(/(.)(.)(.)/,"$1$1$2$2$3$3")}return "0x"+str};this.toJson=function(obj){var _75="";switch(typeof (obj)){case "string":_75="\""+obj+"\"";break;case "number":case "boolean":_75=obj.toString();break;case "object":_75=[];for(var _76 in obj){if(obj[_76]==Object.prototype[_76]){continue}_75.push("\""+_76+"\":"+_6b.toJson(obj[_76]))}_75="{"+_75.join(",")+"}";break}return _75};this.convertCssArg=function(arg){if(!arg){return {}}if(typeof (arg)=="object"){if(arg.constructor==Array){arg=arg.join("")}else{return arg}}var obj={};var _79=arg.split("}");for(var i=0;i<_79.length;i++){var $=_79[i].match(/([^\s{]+)\s*\{(.+)\s*;?\s*/);if(!$||$.length!=3){continue}if(!obj[$[1]]){obj[$[1]]={}}var _7c=$[2].split(";");for(var j=0;j<_7c.length;j++){var $2=_7c[j].match(/\s*([^:\s]+)\s*\:\s*([^\s;]+)/);if(!$2||$2.length!=3){continue}obj[$[1]][$2[1]]=$2[2]}}return obj};this.extractFromCss=function(css,_80,_81,_82){var _83=null;if(css&&css[_80]&&css[_80][_81]){_83=css[_80][_81];if(_82){delete css[_80][_81]}}return _83};this.cssToString=function(arg){var css=[];for(var _86 in arg){var _87=arg[_86];if(_87==Object.prototype[_86]){continue}css.push(_86,"{");for(var _88 in _87){if(_87[_88]==Object.prototype[_88]){continue}css.push(_88,":",_87[_88],";")}css.push("}")}return escape(css.join(""))}};this.util=_6b;var _5f={};_5f.fragmentIdentifier=new function(){this.fix=true;var _89;this.cache=function(){_89=document.title};function doFix(){document.title=_89}this.restore=function(){if(this.fix){setTimeout(doFix,0)}}};_5f.synchronizer=new function(){this.isBlocked=false;this.block=function(){this.isBlocked=true};this.unblock=function(){this.isBlocked=false;_8a.replaceAll()}};_5f.zoom=new function(){var _8b=100;this.getLatest=function(){return _8b};if(ua.zoomSupport&&ua.opera){var _8c=document.createElement("div");_8c.style.position="fixed";_8c.style.left="-65536px";_8c.style.top="0";_8c.style.height="100%";_8c.style.width="1px";_8c.style.zIndex="-32";document.documentElement.appendChild(_8c);function updateZoom(){if(!_8c){return}var _8d=window.innerHeight/_8c.offsetHeight;var _8e=Math.round(_8d*100)%10;if(_8e>5){_8d=Math.round(_8d*100)+10-_8e}else{_8d=Math.round(_8d*100)-_8e}_8b=isNaN(_8d)?100:_8d;_5f.synchronizer.unblock();document.documentElement.removeChild(_8c);_8c=null}_5f.synchronizer.block();setTimeout(updateZoom,54)}};this.hacks=_5f;var _8f={kwargs:[],replaceAll:function(){for(var i=0;i<this.kwargs.length;i++){_3b.replace(this.kwargs[i])}this.kwargs=[]}};var _8a={kwargs:[],replaceAll:_8f.replaceAll};function isValidDomain(){if(_3b.domains.length==0){return true}var _91="";try{_91=document.domain}catch(e){}if(_3b.fromLocal&&sIFR.domains[0]!="localhost"){sIFR.domains.unshift("localhost")}for(var i=0;i<_3b.domains.length;i++){if(_3b.domains[i]=="*"||_3b.domains[i]==_91){return true}}return false}this.activate=function(){if(!ua.supported||!this.isEnabled||this.isActive||!isValidDomain()){return}this.isActive=true;if(this.hideElements){this.setFlashClass()}if(ua.ieWin&&_5f.fragmentIdentifier.fix&&window.location.hash!=""){_5f.fragmentIdentifier.cache()}else{_5f.fragmentIdentifier.fix=false}if(!this.registerEvents){return}function handler(evt){_3b.initialize();if(evt&&evt.type=="load"){if(document.removeEventListener){document.removeEventListener("DOMContentLoaded",handler,false);document.removeEventListener("load",handler,false)}if(window.removeEventListener){window.removeEventListener("load",handler,false)}}}if(window.addEventListener){if(_3b.useDomContentLoaded&&ua.gecko){document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded",handler,false)}window.addEventListener("load",handler,false)}else{if(ua.ieWin){if(_3b.useDomContentLoaded&&!_4a){document.write("<scr"+"ipt id=__sifr_ie_onload defer src=//:></script>");document.getElementById("__sifr_ie_onload").onreadystatechange=function(){if(this.readyState=="complete"){handler();this.removeNode()}}}window.attachEvent("onload",handler)}}};this.setFlashClass=function(){if(this.hasFlashClassSet){return}dom.addClass(_3c,dom.getBody()||document.documentElement);this.hasFlashClassSet=true};this.removeFlashClass=function(){if(!this.hasFlashClassSet){return}dom.removeClass(_3c,dom.getBody());dom.removeClass(_3c,document.documentElement);this.hasFlashClassSet=false};this.initialize=function(){if(_4b||!this.isActive||!this.isEnabled){return}_4b=true;_8f.replaceAll();clearPrefetch()};function getSource(src){if(typeof (src)!="string"){if(src.src){src=src.src}if(typeof (src)!="string"){var _95=[];for(var _96 in src){if(src[_96]!=Object.prototype[_96]){_95.push(_96)}}_95.sort().reverse();var _97="";var i=-1;while(!_97&&++i<_95.length){if(parseFloat(_95[i])<=ua.flashVersion){_97=src[_95[i]]}}src=_97}}if(!src&&_3b.debugMode){throw new Error("sIFR: Could not determine appropriate source")}if(ua.ie&&src.charAt(0)=="/"){src=window.location.toString().replace(/([^:]+)(:\/?\/?)([^\/]+).*/,"$1$2$3")+src}return src}this.prefetch=function(){if(!ua.requiresPrefetch||!ua.supported||!this.isEnabled||!isValidDomain()){return}if(this.setPrefetchCookie&&new RegExp(";?"+_47+"=true;?").test(document.cookie)){return}try{_4a=true;if(ua.ieWin){prefetchIexplore(arguments)}else{prefetchLight(arguments)}if(this.setPrefetchCookie){document.cookie=_47+"=true;path="+this.cookiePath}}catch(e){if(_3b.debugMode){throw e}}};function prefetchIexplore(_99){for(var i=0;i<_99.length;i++){document.write("<embed src=\""+getSource(_99[i])+"\" sIFR-prefetch=\"true\" style=\"display:none;\">")}}function prefetchLight(_9b){for(var i=0;i<_9b.length;i++){new Image().src=getSource(_9b[i])}}function clearPrefetch(){if(!ua.ieWin||!_4a){return}try{var _9d=document.getElementsByTagName("embed");for(var i=_9d.length-1;i>=0;i--){var _9f=_9d[i];if(_9f.getAttribute("sIFR-prefetch")=="true"){_9f.parentNode.removeChild(_9f)}}}catch(e){}}function getRatio(_a0){if(_a0<=10){return 1.55}if(_a0<=19){return 1.45}if(_a0<=32){return 1.35}if(_a0<=71){return 1.3}return 1.25}function getFilters(obj){var _a2=[];for(var _a3 in obj){if(obj[_a3]==Object.prototype[_a3]){continue}var _a4=obj[_a3];_a3=[_a3.replace(/filter/i,"")+"Filter"];for(var _a5 in _a4){if(_a4[_a5]==Object.prototype[_a5]){continue}_a3.push(_a5+":"+escape(_6b.toJson(_6b.toHexString(_a4[_a5]))))}_a2.push(_a3.join(","))}return _a2.join(";")}this.replace=function(_a6,_a7){if(!ua.supported){return}if(_a7){for(var _a8 in _a6){if(typeof (_a7[_a8])=="undefined"){_a7[_a8]=_a6[_a8]}}_a6=_a7}if(!_4b){return _8f.kwargs.push(_a6)}if(_5f.synchronizer.isBlocked){return _8a.kwargs.push(_a6)}var _a9=_a6.elements;if(!_a9&&parseSelector){_a9=parseSelector(_a6.selector)}if(_a9.length==0){return}this.setFlashClass();var src=getSource(_a6.src);var css=_6b.convertCssArg(_a6.css);var _ac=getFilters(_a6.filters);var _ad=(_a6.forceClear==null)?_3b.forceClear:_a6.forceClear;var _ae=(_a6.fitExactly==null)?_3b.fitExactly:_a6.fitExactly;var _af=_ae||(_a6.forceWidth==null?_3b.forceWidth:_a6.forceWidth);var _b0=parseInt(_6b.extractFromCss(css,".sIFR-root","leading"))||0;var _b1=_6b.extractFromCss(css,".sIFR-root","background-color",true)||"#FFFFFF";var _b2=_6b.extractFromCss(css,".sIFR-root","opacity",true)||"100";if(parseFloat(_b2)<1){_b2=100*parseFloat(_b2)}var _b3=_6b.extractFromCss(css,".sIFR-root","kerning",true)||"";var _b4=_a6.gridFitType||_6b.extractFromCss(css,".sIFR-root","text-align")=="right"?"subpixel":"pixel";var _b5=_3b.forceTextTransform?_6b.extractFromCss(css,".sIFR-root","text-transform",true)||"none":"none";var _b6="";if(_ae){_6b.extractFromCss(css,".sIFR-root","text-align",true)}if(!_a6.modifyCss){_b6=_6b.cssToString(css)}var _b7=_a6.wmode||"";if(_b7=="transparent"){if(!ua.transparencySupport){_b7="opaque"}else{_b1="transparent"}}for(var i=0;i<_a9.length;i++){var _b9=_a9[i];if(!ua.verifiedKonqueror){if(dom.getComputedStyle(_b9,"lineHeight").match(/e\+08px/)){ua.supported=_3b.isEnabled=false;this.removeFlashClass();return}ua.verifiedKonqueror=true}if(dom.hasClass(_3d,_b9)||dom.hasClass(_3f,_b9)){continue}var _ba=false;if(!_b9.offsetHeight||!_b9.offsetWidth){if(!_3b.replaceNonDisplayed){continue}_b9.style.display="block";if(!_b9.offsetHeight||!_b9.offsetWidth){_b9.style.display="";continue}_ba=true}if(_ad&&ua.gecko){_b9.style.clear="both"}var _bb=null;if(_3b.fixWrap&&ua.ie&&dom.getComputedStyle(_b9,"display")=="block"){_bb=_b9.innerHTML;dom.setInnerHtml(_b9,"X")}var _bc=dom.getStyleAsInt(_b9,"width",ua.ie);if(ua.ie&&_bc==0){var _bd=dom.getStyleAsInt(_b9,"paddingRight",true);var _be=dom.getStyleAsInt(_b9,"paddingLeft",true);var _bf=dom.getStyleAsInt(_b9,"borderRightWidth",true);var _c0=dom.getStyleAsInt(_b9,"borderLeftWidth",true);_bc=_b9.offsetWidth-_be-_bd-_c0-_bf}if(_bb&&_3b.fixWrap&&ua.ie){dom.setInnerHtml(_b9,_bb)}var _c1,_c2;if(!ua.ie){_c1=dom.getStyleAsInt(_b9,"lineHeight");_c2=Math.floor(dom.getStyleAsInt(_b9,"height")/_c1)}else{if(ua.ie){var _bb=_b9.innerHTML;_b9.style.visibility="visible";_b9.style.overflow="visible";_b9.style.position="static";_b9.style.zoom="normal";_b9.style.writingMode="lr-tb";_b9.style.width=_b9.style.height="auto";_b9.style.maxWidth=_b9.style.maxHeight=_b9.style.styleFloat="none";var _c3=_b9;var _c4=_b9.currentStyle.hasLayout;if(_c4){dom.setInnerHtml(_b9,"<div class=\""+_42+"\">X<br />X<br />X</div>");_c3=_b9.firstChild}else{dom.setInnerHtml(_b9,"X<br />X<br />X")}var _c5=_c3.getClientRects();_c1=_c5[1].bottom-_c5[1].top;_c1=Math.ceil(_c1*0.8);if(_c4){dom.setInnerHtml(_b9,"<div class=\""+_42+"\">"+_bb+"</div>");_c3=_b9.firstChild}else{dom.setInnerHtml(_b9,_bb)}_c5=_c3.getClientRects();_c2=_c5.length;if(_c4){dom.setInnerHtml(_b9,_bb)}_b9.style.visibility=_b9.style.width=_b9.style.height=_b9.style.maxWidth=_b9.style.maxHeight=_b9.style.overflow=_b9.style.styleFloat=_b9.style.position=_b9.style.zoom=_b9.style.writingMode=""}}if(_ba){_b9.style.display=""}if(_ad&&ua.gecko){_b9.style.clear=""}_c1=Math.max(_44,_c1);_c1=Math.min(_45,_c1);if(isNaN(_c2)||!isFinite(_c2)){_c2=1}var _c6=Math.round(_c2*_c1);if(_c2>1&&_b0){_c6+=Math.round((_c2-1)*_b0)}var _c7=dom.create("span");_c7.className=_40;var _c8=_b9.cloneNode(true);for(var j=0,l=_c8.childNodes.length;j<l;j++){_c7.appendChild(_c8.childNodes[j].cloneNode(true))}if(_a6.modifyContent){_a6.modifyContent(_c8,_a6.selector)}if(_a6.modifyCss){_b6=_a6.modifyCss(css,_c8,_a6.selector)}var _cb=handleContent(_c8,_b5);if(_a6.modifyContentString){_cb=_a6.modifyContentString(_cb,_a6.selector)}if(_cb==""){continue}var _cc=["content="+_cb.replace(/\</g,"&lt;").replace(/>/g,"&gt;"),"width="+_bc,"height="+_c6,"fitexactly="+(_ae?"true":""),"tunewidth="+(_a6.tuneWidth||""),"tuneheight="+(_a6.tuneHeight||""),"offsetleft="+(_a6.offsetLeft||""),"offsettop="+(_a6.offsetTop||""),"thickness="+(_a6.thickness||""),"sharpness="+(_a6.sharpness||""),"kerning="+_b3,"gridfittype="+_b4,"zoomsupport="+ua.zoomSupport,"filters="+_ac,"opacity="+_b2,"blendmode="+(_a6.blendMode||""),"size="+_c1,"zoom="+dom.getZoom(),"css="+_b6];_cc=encodeURI(_cc.join("&amp;"));var _cd="sIFR_callback_"+_49++;var _ce={flashNode:null};window[_cd+"_DoFSCommand"]=(function(_cf){return function(_d0,arg){if(/(FSCommand\:)?resize/.test(_d0)){var $=arg.split(":");_cf.flashNode.setAttribute($[0],$[1]);if(ua.khtml){_cf.flashNode.innerHTML+=""}}}})(_ce);_c6=Math.round(_c2*getRatio(_c1)*_c1);var _d3=_af?_bc:"100%";var _d4;if(ua.ie){_d4=["<object classid=\"clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000\" id=\"",_cd,"\" sifr=\"true\" width=\"",_d3,"\" height=\"",_c6,"\" class=\"",_3e,"\">","<param name=\"movie\" value=\"",src,"\"></param>","<param name=\"flashvars\" value=\"",_cc,"\"></param>","<param name=\"allowScriptAccess\" value=\"always\"></param>","<param name=\"quality\" value=\"best\"></param>","<param name=\"wmode\" value=\"",_b7,"\"></param>","<param name=\"bgcolor\" value=\"",_b1,"\"></param>","<param name=\"name\" value=\"",_cd,"\"></param>","</object>","<scr","ipt event=FSCommand(info,args) for=",_cd,">",_cd,"_DoFSCommand(info, args);","</","script>"].join("")}else{_d4=["<embed class=\"",_3e,"\" type=\"application/x-shockwave-flash\" src=\"",src,"\" quality=\"best\" flashvars=\"",_cc,"\" width=\"",_d3,"\" height=\"",_c6,"\" wmode=\"",_b7,"\" bgcolor=\"",_b1,"\" name=\"",_cd,"\" allowScriptAccess=\"always\" sifr=\"true\"></embed>"].join("")}dom.setInnerHtml(_b9,_d4);_ce.flashNode=_b9.firstChild;_b9.appendChild(_c7);dom.addClass(_3d,_b9);if(_a6.onReplacement){_a6.onReplacement(_ce.flashNode)}}_5f.fragmentIdentifier.restore()};function handleContent(_d5,_d6){var _d7=[],_d8=[];var _d9=_d5.childNodes;var i=0;while(i<_d9.length){var _db=_d9[i];if(_db.nodeType==3){var _dc=_6b.normalize(_db.nodeValue);_dc=_6b.textTransform(_d6,_dc);_d8.push(_dc.replace(/\%/g,"%25").replace(/\&/g,"%26").replace(/\,/g,"%2C").replace(/\+/g,"%2B"))}if(_db.nodeType==1){var _dd=[];var _de=_db.nodeName.toLowerCase();var _df=_db.className||"";if(/\s+/.test(_df)){if(_df.indexOf(_41)){_df=_df.match("(\\s|^)"+_41+"-([^\\s$]*)(\\s|$)")[2]}else{_df=_df.match(/^([^\s]+)/)[1]}}if(_df!=""){_dd.push("class=\""+_df+"\"")}if(_de=="a"){var _e0=_db.getAttribute("href")||"";var _e1=_db.getAttribute("target")||"";_dd.push("href=\""+_e0+"\"","target=\""+_e1+"\"")}_d8.push("<"+_de+(_dd.length>0?" ":"")+escape(_dd.join(" "))+">");if(_db.hasChildNodes()){_d7.push(i);i=0;_d9=_db.childNodes;continue}else{if(!/^(br|img)$/i.test(_db.nodeName)){_d8.push("</",_db.nodeName.toLowerCase(),">")}}}if(_d7.length>0&&!_db.nextSibling){do{i=_d7.pop();_d9=_db.parentNode.parentNode.childNodes;_db=_d9[i];if(_db){_d8.push("</",_db.nodeName.toLowerCase(),">")}}while(i<_d9.length&&_d7.length>0)}i++}return _d8.join("").replace(/\n|\r/g,"")}}; sIFR.prefetch({ src: 'swf/sifr/helvetica.swf' }); sIFR.activate(); sIFR.replace({ selector: 'h2, h3', src: 'swf/sifr/helvetica.swf', wmode: 'transparent', css: { '.sIFR-root' : { 'color': '#000000', 'font-weight': 'bold', 'letter-spacing': '-1' }, 'a': { 'text-decoration': 'none' }, 'a:link': { 'color': '#000000' }, 'a:hover': { 'color': '#000000' }, '.span': { 'color': '#979797' }, 'label': { 'color': '#E11818' } } }); sIFR.replace({ selector: 'h4', src: 'swf/sifr/helvetica.swf', wmode: 'transparent', css: { '.sIFR-root' : { 'color': '#7E7E7E', 'font-weight': 'bold', 'letter-spacing': '-0.8' }, 'a': { 'text-decoration': 'none' }, 'a:link': { 'color': '#7E7E7E' }, 'a:hover': { 'color': '#7E7E7E' }, 'label': { 'color': '#E11818' } } }); sIFR.replace({ selector: '#cart p', src: 'swf/sifr/helvetica-lt.swf', wmode: 'transparent', css: { '.sIFR-root' : { 'color': '#979797', 'font-weight': 'bold', 'letter-spacing': '-0.8' }, 'a': { 'text-decoration': 'none' }, 'a:link': { 'color': '#979797' }, 'a:hover': { 'color': '#000000' }, 'label': { 'color': '#979797' } } }); Thank you in advance for your help!

    Read the article

  • Reducing Deadlocks - not a DBA issue ?

    - by steveh99999
     As a DBA, I'm involved on an almost daily basis troubleshooting 'SQL Server' performance issues. Often, this troubleshooting soon veers away from a 'its a SQL Server issue' to instead become a wider application/database design/coding issue.One common perception with SQL Server is that deadlocking is an application design issue - and is fixed by recoding...  I see this reinforced by MCP-type questions/scenarios where the answer to prevent deadlocking is simply to change the order in code in which tables are accessed....Whilst this is correct, I do think this has led to a situation where many 'operational' or 'production support' DBAs, when faced with a deadlock, are happy to throw the issue over to developers without analysing the issue further....A couple of 'war stories' on deadlocks which I think are interesting :- Case One , I had an issue recently on a third-party application that I support on SQL 2008.  This particular third-party application has an unusual support agreement where the customer is allowed to change the index design on the third-party provided database.  However, we are not allowed to alter application code or modify table structure..This third-party application is also known to encounter occasional deadlocks – indeed, I have documentation from the vendor that up to 50 deadlocks per day is not unusual !So, as a DBA I have to support an application which in my opinion has too many deadlocks - but, I cannot influence the design of the tables or stored procedures for the application. This should be the classic - blame the third-party developers scenario, and hope this issue gets addressed in a future application release - ie we could wait years for this to be resolved and implemented in our production environment...But, as DBAs  can change the index layout, is there anything I could do still to reduce the deadlocks in the application ?I initially used SQL traceflag 1222 to write deadlock detection output to the SQL Errorlog – using this I was able to identify one table heavily involved in the deadlocks.When I examined the table definition, I was surprised to see it was a heap – ie no clustered index existed on the table.Using SQL profiler to see locking behaviour and plan for the query involved in the deadlock, I was able to confirm a table scan was being performed.By creating an appropriate clustered index - it was possible to produce a more efficient plan and locking behaviour.So, less locks, held for less time = less possibility of deadlocks. I'm still unhappy about the overall number of deadlocks on this system - but that's something to be discussed further with the vendor.Case Two,  a system which hadn't changed for months suddenly started seeing deadlocks on a regular basis. I love the 'nothing's changed' scenario, as it gives me the opportunity to appear wise and say 'nothings changed on this system, except the data'.. This particular deadlock occurred on a table which had been growing rapidly. By using DBCC SHOW_STATISTICS - the DBA team were able to see that the deadlocks seemed to be occurring shortly after auto-update stats had regenerated the table statistics using it's default sampling behaviour.As a quick fix, we were able to schedule a nightly UPDATE STATISTICS WITH FULLSCAN on the table involved in the deadlock - thus, greatly reducing the potential for stats to be updated via auto_update_stats, consequently reducing the potential for a bad plan to be generated based on an unrepresentative sample of the data. This reduced the possibility of a deadlock occurring.  Not a perfect solution by any means, but quick, easy to implement, and needed no application code changes. This fix gave us some 'breathing space'  to properly fix the code during the next scheduled application release.   The moral of this post - don't dismiss deadlocks as issues that can only be fixed by developers...

    Read the article

  • DBA Best Practices - A Blog Series: Episode 2 - Password Lists

    - by Argenis
      Digital World, Digital Locks One of the biggest digital assets that any company has is its secrets. These include passwords, key rings, certificates, and any other digital asset used to protect another asset from tampering or unauthorized access. As a DBA, you are very likely to manage some of these assets for your company - and your employer trusts you with keeping them safe. Probably one of the most important of these assets are passwords. As you well know, the can be used anywhere: for service accounts, credentials, proxies, linked servers, DTS/SSIS packages, symmetrical keys, private keys, etc., etc. Have you given some thought to what you're doing to keep these passwords safe? Are you backing them up somewhere? Who else besides you can access them? Good-Ol’ Post-It Notes Under Your Keyboard If you have a password-protected Excel sheet for your passwords, I have bad news for you: Excel's level of encryption is good for your grandma's budget spreadsheet, not for a list of enterprise passwords. I will try to summarize the main point of this best practice in one sentence: You should keep your passwords on an encrypted, access and version-controlled, backed-up, well-known shared location that every DBA on your team is aware of, and maintain copies of this password "database" on your DBA's workstations. Now I have to break down that statement to you: - Encrypted: what’s the point of saving your passwords on a file that any Windows admin with enough privileges can read? - Access controlled: This one is pretty much self-explanatory. - Version controlled: Passwords change (and I’m really hoping you do change them) and version control would allow you to track what a previous password was if the utility you’ve chosen doesn’t handle that for you. - Backed-up: You want a safe copy of the password list to be kept offline, preferably in long term storage, with relative ease of restoring. - Well-known shared location: This is critical for teams: what good is a password list if only one person in the team knows where it is? I have seen multiple examples of this that work well. They all start with an encrypted database. Certainly you could leverage SQL Server's native encryption solutions like cell encryption for this. I have found such implementations to be impractical, for the most part. Enter The World Of Utilities There are a myriad of open source/free software solutions to help you here. One of my favorites is KeePass, which creates encrypted files that can be saved to a network share, Sharepoint, etc. KeePass has UIs for most operating systems, including Windows, MacOS, iOS, Android and Windows Phone. Other solutions I've used before worth mentioning include PasswordSafe and 1Password, with the latter one being a paid solution – but wildly popular in mobile devices. There are, of course, even more "enterprise-level" solutions available from 3rd party vendors. The truth is that most of the customers that I work with don't need that level of protection of their digital assets, and something like a KeePass database on Sharepoint suits them very well. What are you doing to safeguard your passwords? Leave a comment below, and join the discussion! Cheers, -Argenis

    Read the article

  • What do DBAs do?

    - by Jonathan Conway
    Yes, I know they administrate databases. I asked this question because I'd like to get a further insight into the kind of day-to-day duties a DBA might perform, and the real-world business problems they solve. For example: I optimized a 'products' query so that it ran 25% faster, which made the overall application faster. Is this a typical duty? Or is there more to being a DBA than simply making things faster? In what situations does DBA work involve planning and creativity?

    Read the article

  • DBA Command line options

    - by Anthony Shorten
    There are a number of database utilities supplied with the installation of the Oracle Utilities Application Framework based products. These are typically run in interactive mode where the utility prompts you for the values and then executes the required functionality. Did you know that the utilities also have command line options that allow you to run the utility in silent mode as well? You can assess the command line options by specifying the -h option on the command line. Here is an example of the oragensec command line options: oragensec -d <Owner,OwnerPswd,DbName> -u <Database Users> -r <ReadRole,UserRole> -l <logfile> -h where: -d <Owner,OwnerPswd,DbName> Database connect information for the target database. e.g. spladm,spladm,DB200ODB. -u <Database Users> A comma-separated list of database users where synonyms need to be created. e.g. spluser, splread -r <ReadRole,UserRole> Optional. Names of database roles with read and read-write privileges. Default roles are SPL_READ, SPL_USER. e.g. spl_read,spl_user -l <logfile> Optional. Name of the log file. -h Help The command line options allow the DBA to automate the exeucution either via a script or some utility can than execute utilities. This optin can apply to the majority of DBA utilities supplied with the product. Take a look at others.

    Read the article

  • What Counts For A DBA: Foresight

    - by drsql
    Of all the valuable attributes of a DBA covered so far in this series, ranging from passion to humility to practicality, perhaps one of the most important attributes may turn out to be the most seemingly-nebulous: foresight. According to Free Dictionary foresight is the "perception of the significance and nature of events before they have occurred". Foresight does not come naturally to most people, as the parent of any teenager will attest. No matter how clearly you see their problems coming they won't listen, and have to fail before eventually (hopefully) learning for themselves. Having graduated from the school of hard knocks, the DBA, the naive teenager no longer, acquires the ability to foretell how events will unfold in response to certain actions or attitudes with the unerring accuracy of a doom-laden prophet. Like Simba in the Lion King, after a few blows to the head, we foretell that a sore head that will be the inevitable consequence of a swing of Rafiki's stick, and we take evasive action. However, foresight is about more than simply learning when to duck. It's about taking the time to understand and prevent the habits that caused the stick to swing in the first place. And based on this definition, I often think there is a lot less foresight on display in my industry than there ought to be. Most DBAs reading this blog will spot a line such as the following in a piece of "working" code, understand immediately why it is less than optimimum, and take evasive action. …WHERE CAST (columnName as int) = 1 However, the programmers who regularly write this sort of code clearly lack that foresight, and this and numerous other examples of similarly-malodorous code prevail throughout our industry (and provide premium-grade fertilizer for the healthy growth of many a consultant's bank account). Sometimes, perhaps harried by impatient managers and painfully tight deadlines, everyone makes mistakes. Yes, I too occasionally write code that "works", but basically stinks. When the problems manifest, it is sometimes accompanied by a sense of grim recognition that somewhere in me existed the foresight to know that that approach would lead to this problem. However, in the headlong rush, warning signs got overlooked, lessons learned previously, which could supply the foresight to the current project, were lost and not applied.   Of course, the problem often is a simple lack of skills, training and knowledge in the relevant technology and/or business space; programmers and DBAs forced to do their best in the face of inadequate training, or to apply their skills in areas where they lack experience. However, often the problem goes deeper than this; I detect in some DBAs and programmers a certain laziness of attitude.   They veer from one project to the next, going with "whatever works", unwilling or unable to take the time to understand where their actions are leading them. Of course, the whole "Agile" mindset is often interpreted to favor flexibility and rapid production over aiming to get things right the first time. The faster you try to travel in the dark, frequently changing direction, the more important it is to have someone who has the foresight to know at least roughly where you are heading. This is doubly true for the data tier which, no matter how you try to deny it, simply cannot be "redone" every month as you learn aspects of the world you are trying to model that, with a little bit of foresight, you would have seen coming.   Sometimes, when as a DBA you can glance briefly at 200 lines of working SQL code and know instinctively why it will cause problems, foresight can feel like magic, but it isn't; it's more like muscle memory. It is acquired as the consequence of good experience, useful communication with those around you, and a willingness to learn continually, through continued education as well as from failure. Foresight can be deployed only by finding time to understand how the lessons learned from other DBAs, and other projects, can help steer the current project in the right direction.   C.S. Lewis once said "The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is." It cannot be avoided; the quality of what you build now is going to affect you, and others, at some point in the future. Take the time to acquire foresight; it is a love letter to your future self, to say you cared.

    Read the article

  • Brad's Sure DBA Checklist

    Sometimes, all a DBA needs, to help with day-to-day work, is a checklist of best-practices and dos and don’ts. It provides a handy reminder. Brad has come up with a new update to his famous checklist

    Read the article

  • Raw Materials - Og, Sumerian DBA, Part 2

    A disruptive innovation raises an old, old question. Join SQL Backup’s 35,000+ customers to compress and strengthen your backups "SQL Backup will be a REAL boost to any DBA lucky enough to use it." Jonathan Allen. Download a free trial now.

    Read the article

  • DBA Best Practices - A Blog Series: Episode 1 - Backups

    - by Argenis
      This blog post is part of the DBA Best Practices series, on which various topics of concern for daily database operations are discussed. Your feedback and comments are very much welcome, so please drop by the comments section and be sure to leave your thoughts on the subject. Morning Coffee When I was a DBA, the first thing I did when I sat down at my desk at work was checking that all backups had completed successfully. It really was more of a ritual, since I had a dual system in place to check for backup completion: 1) the scheduled agent jobs to back up the databases were set to alert the NOC in failure, and 2) I had a script run from a central server every so often to check for any backup failures. Why the redundancy, you might ask. Well, for one I was once bitten by the fact that database mail doesn't work 100% of the time. Potential causes for failure include issues on the SMTP box that relays your server email, firewall problems, DNS issues, etc. And so to be sure that my backups completed fine, I needed to rely on a mechanism other than having the servers do the taking - I needed to interrogate the servers and ask each one if an issue had occurred. This is why I had a script run every so often. Some of you might have monitoring tools in place like Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) or similar 3rd party products that would track all these things for you. But at that moment, we had no resort but to write our own Powershell scripts to do it. Now it goes without saying that if you don't have backups in place, you might as well find another career. Your most sacred job as a DBA is to protect the data from a disaster, and only properly safeguarded backups can offer you peace of mind here. "But, we have a cluster...we don't need backups" Sadly I've heard this line more than I would have liked to. You need to understand that a cluster is comprised of shared storage, and that is precisely your single point of failure. A cluster will protect you from an issue at the Operating System level, and also under an outage of any SQL-related service or dependent devices. But it will most definitely NOT protect you against corruption, nor will it protect you against somebody deleting data from a table - accidentally or otherwise. Backup, fine. How often do I take a backup? The answer to this is something you will hear frequently when working with databases: it depends. What does it depend on? For one, you need to understand how much data your business is willing to lose. This is what's called Recovery Point Objective, or RPO. If you don't know how much data your business is willing to lose, you need to have an honest and realistic conversation about data loss expectations with your customers, internal or external. From my experience, their first answer to the question "how much data loss can you withstand?" will be "zero". In that case, you will need to explain how zero data loss is very difficult and very costly to achieve, even in today's computing environments. Do you want to go ahead and take full backups of all your databases every hour, or even every day? Probably not, because of the impact that taking a full backup can have on a system. That's what differential and transaction log backups are for. Have I answered the question of how often to take a backup? No, and I did that on purpose. You need to think about how much time you have to recover from any event that requires you to restore your databases. This is what's called Recovery Time Objective. Again, if you go ask your customer how long of an outage they can withstand, at first you will get a completely unrealistic number - and that will be your starting point for discussing a solution that is cost effective. The point that I'm trying to get across is that you need to have a plan. This plan needs to be practiced, and tested. Like a football playbook, you need to rehearse the moves you'll perform when the time comes. How often is up to you, and the objective is that you feel better about yourself and the steps you need to follow when emergency strikes. A backup is nothing more than an untested restore Backups are files. Files are prone to corruption. Put those two together and realize how you feel about those backups sitting on that network drive. When was the last time you restored any of those? Restoring your backups on another box - that, by the way, doesn't have to match the specs of your production server - will give you two things: 1) peace of mind, because now you know that your backups are good and 2) a place to offload your consistency checks with DBCC CHECKDB or any of the other DBCC commands like CHECKTABLE or CHECKCATALOG. This is a great strategy for VLDBs that cannot withstand the additional load created by the consistency checks. If you choose to offload your consistency checks to another server though, be sure to run DBCC CHECKDB WITH PHYSICALONLY on the production server, and if you're using SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1 CU4 and above, be sure to enable traceflags 2562 and/or 2549, which will speed up the PHYSICALONLY checks further - you can read more about this enhancement here. Back to the "How Often" question for a second. If you have the disk, and the network latency, and the system resources to do so, why not backup the transaction log often? As in, every 5 minutes, or even less than that? There's not much downside to doing it, as you will have to clear the log with a backup sooner than later, lest you risk running out space on your tlog, or even your drive. The one drawback to this approach is that you will have more files to deal with at restore time, and processing each file will add a bit of extra time to the entire process. But it might be worth that time knowing that you minimized the amount of data lost. Again, test your plan to make sure that it matches your particular needs. Where to back up to? Network share? Locally? SAN volume? This is another topic where everybody has a favorite choice. So, I'll stick to mentioning what I like to do and what I consider to be the best practice in this regard. I like to backup to a SAN volume, i.e., a drive that actually lives in the SAN, and can be easily attached to another server in a pinch, saving you valuable time - you wouldn't need to restore files on the network (slow) or pull out drives out a dead server (been there, done that, it’s also slow!). The key is to have a copy of those backup files made quickly, and, if at all possible, to a remote target on a different datacenter - or even the cloud. There are plenty of solutions out there that can help you put such a solution together. That right there is the first step towards a practical Disaster Recovery plan. But there's much more to DR, and that's material for a different blog post in this series.

    Read the article

  • Windows Server 2003 network boogey men every DBA should know

    - by merrillaldrich
    Recently I was again visited by my old friends TCP Chimney and SynAttackProtect . (Yeah, sometimes I feel like I mostly blog about 5-year old problems, but many of us as DBA's have to work on older versions or older systems, and so repeat older problems :-). This has been written about before, but as I BinGoogled around I noticed you are more likely to find the documents if you search for the cause, and not the symptoms. Most people who face a problem, of course, know the symptoms but not the cause....(read more)

    Read the article

  • DBA Best Practices - A Blog Series: Episode 1 - Backups

    - by Argenis
      This blog post is part of the DBA Best Practices series, on which various topics of concern for daily database operations are discussed. Your feedback and comments are very much welcome, so please drop by the comments section and be sure to leave your thoughts on the subject. Morning Coffee When I was a DBA, the first thing I did when I sat down at my desk at work was checking that all backups have completed successfully. It really was more of a ritual, since I had a dual system in place to check for backup completion: 1) the scheduled agent jobs to back up the databases were set to alert the NOC in failure, and 2) I had a script run from a central server every so often to check for any backup failures. Why the redundancy, you might ask. Well, for one I was once bitten by the fact that database mail doesn't work 100% of the time. Potential causes for failure include issues on the SMTP box that relays your server email, firewall problems, DNS issues, etc. And so to be sure that my backups completed fine, I needed to rely on a mechanism other than having the servers do the taking - I needed to interrogate the servers and ask each one if an issue had occurred. This is why I had a script run every so often. Some of you might have monitoring tools in place like Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) or similar 3rd party products that would track all these things for you. But at that moment, we had no resort but to write our own Powershell scripts to do it. Now it goes without saying that if you don't have backups in place, you might as well find another career. Your most sacred job as a DBA is to protect the data from a disaster, and only properly safeguarded backups can offer you peace of mind here. "But, we have a cluster...we don't need backups" Sadly I've heard this line more than I would have liked to. You need to understand that a cluster is comprised of shared storage, and that is precisely your single point of failure. A cluster will protect you from an issue at the Operating System level, and also under an outage of any SQL-related service or dependent devices. But it will most definitely NOT protect you against corruption, nor will it protect you against somebody deleting data from a table - accidentally or otherwise. Backup, fine. How often do I take a backup? The answer to this is something you will hear frequently when working with databases: it depends. What does it depend on? For one, you need to understand how much data your business is willing to lose. This is what's called Recovery Point Objective, or RPO. If you don't know how much data your business is willing to lose, you need to have an honest and realistic conversation about data loss expectations with your customers, internal or external. From my experience, their first answer to the question "how much data loss can you withstand?" will be "zero". In that case, you will need to explain how zero data loss is very difficult and very costly to achieve, even in today's computing environments. Do you want to go ahead and take full backups of all your databases every hour, or even every day? Probably not, because of the impact that taking a full backup can have on a system. That's what differential and transaction log backups are for. Have I answered the question of how often to take a backup? No, and I did that on purpose. You need to think about how much time you have to recover from any event that requires you to restore your databases. This is what's called Recovery Time Objective. Again, if you go ask your customer how long of an outage they can withstand, at first you will get a completely unrealistic number - and that will be your starting point for discussing a solution that is cost effective. The point that I'm trying to get across is that you need to have a plan. This plan needs to be practiced, and tested. Like a football playbook, you need to rehearse the moves you'll perform when the time comes. How often is up to you, and the objective is that you feel better about yourself and the steps you need to follow when emergency strikes. A backup is nothing more than an untested restore Backups are files. Files are prone to corruption. Put those two together and realize how you feel about those backups sitting on that network drive. When was the last time you restored any of those? Restoring your backups on another box - that, by the way, doesn't have to match the specs of your production server - will give you two things: 1) peace of mind, because now you know that your backups are good and 2) a place to offload your consistency checks with DBCC CHECKDB or any of the other DBCC commands like CHECKTABLE or CHECKCATALOG. This is a great strategy for VLDBs that cannot withstand the additional load created by the consistency checks. If you choose to offload your consistency checks to another server though, be sure to run DBCC CHECKDB WITH PHYSICALONLY on the production server, and if you're using SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1 CU4 and above, be sure to enable traceflags 2562 and/or 2549, which will speed up the PHYSICALONLY checks further - you can read more about this enhancement here. Back to the "How Often" question for a second. If you have the disk, and the network latency, and the system resources to do so, why not backup the transaction log often? As in, every 5 minutes, or even less than that? There's not much downside to doing it, as you will have to clear the log with a backup sooner than later, lest you risk running out space on your tlog, or even your drive. The one drawback to this approach is that you will have more files to deal with at restore time, and processing each file will add a bit of extra time to the entire process. But it might be worth that time knowing that you minimized the amount of data lost. Again, test your plan to make sure that it matches your particular needs. Where to back up to? Network share? Locally? SAN volume? This is another topic where everybody has a favorite choice. So, I'll stick to mentioning what I like to do and what I consider to be the best practice in this regard. I like to backup to a SAN volume, i.e., a drive that actually lives in the SAN, and can be easily attached to another server in a pinch, saving you valuable time - you wouldn't need to restore files on the network (slow) or pull out drives out a dead server (been there, done that, it’s also slow!). The key is to have a copy of those backup files made quickly, and, if at all possible, to a remote target on a different datacenter - or even the cloud. There are plenty of solutions out there that can help you put such a solution together. That right there is the first step towards a practical Disaster Recovery plan. But there's much more to DR, and that's material for a different blog post in this series.

    Read the article

  • What Counts for a DBA: Passion

    - by drsql
    One of my first questions, when interviewing for a DBA/Programmer position, is always: “Why do you want this job?” The answers I receive range from cheesy hyperbole (“I want to enhance your services with my vast knowledge”) to deadpan realism (“I have N kids who all have a hole in the front of their face where food goes"). Both answers are fine in their own way, at least displaying some self-confidence, humour and honesty, but once in a while, I'll hear the answer that is music to me ears... “I LOVE DATABASES!” Whenever I hear it, my nerves tingle in hopeful anticipation; have I found someone for whom working with database isn't just a job, but a passion? Inevitably, I'm often disappointed. What initially seemed like passion turns out to be rather shallow enthusiasm; the person is enthusiastic about working with databases in the same way he or she might be about eating a bag of Cajun spiced kettle chips; enjoyable, but not something to think about too deeply or take too seriously. Enthusiasm comes, and enthusiasm goes. I've seen countless technical forum users burst onto the scene in a blaze of frantic question-answering, only to fade away within days, never to be heard from again. Passion, however, is more of a longstanding commitment. The biographies of the great technologists and authors of the recent past are full of the sort of passion and engrossment that lead a person to write a novel non-stop for a fortnight with no sleep and only dog food to eat (Philip K. Dick), or refuse to leave the works of the first tunnel under the Thames, even though it was flooded (Brunel). In a similar (though more modest) way, my passion for working with databases has led me to acts that might cause someone for whom it was "just a job" to roll their eyes in disbelief. Most evenings you're more likely to find me reading a database book than watching TV. I've spent hundreds of hours of my spare time writing blogs and articles (some of which are only read by tens of people); I've spent hundreds of dollars travelling to conferences, paying my own flight and hotel expenses, so that I can share a little of what I know, and mix with some like-minded people. And I know I'm far from alone in this, in the SQL Server community. Passion isn't everything, of course, and it isn't always accompanied by any great skill, but in almost every case, that skill can be cultivated over time. If you are doing what you are passionate about, work turns into more than just a way to feed your kids; it becomes your hobby, entertainment, and preoccupation. And it is this passion that gives a DBA the obsessive stubbornness, the refusal to be beaten by even the most difficult problem, which is often so crucial. A final word of warning though: passion without limits can turn weird. Never let it get in the way of your wife, kids, bills, or personal hygiene.

    Read the article

  • Windows Server 2003 network boogey men every DBA should know

    - by merrillaldrich
    Recently I was again visited by my old friends TCP Chimney and SynAttackProtect . (Yeah, sometimes I feel like I mostly blog about 5-year old problems, but many of us as DBA's have to work on older versions or older systems, and so repeat older problems :-). This has been written about before, but as I BinGoogled around I noticed you are more likely to find the documents if you search for the cause, and not the symptoms. Most people who face a problem, of course, know the symptoms but not the cause....(read more)

    Read the article

< Previous Page | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12  | Next Page >