SQL Health Checks
Phase 1 - The health check
This is the entry point when we come onboard. Our health check reviews not only your SQL server setting and configurations, but we go one step further and review the systems that support your SQL server with review of Windows Server and a variety of subsystems that are attached.
This is also a great resource for documenting the current settings and configurations so that going forward you can baseline performance, reliability and security just to name a few. Our health check also reviews and documents access to your server and provides best practices going forward
Included with our health check costs, is review meetings with you to go over issues and provide best practices from both Microsoft and our experience. Not all servers are the same and their application has specific requirements and needs. It’s our review with your team that provides value, education and a strategy for upgrades. I personally review each server’s health check reports, approve changes and plan out recommendations for any issues I see.
We are not junior DBA’s! If your environment is critical and runs 24/7 then we are the assets you want and can rely on for managing your companies most valued assets.
Phase 2 – The health check remediation
This is step 2 in a total review and cleanup of your server. This is where changes begin.
After reviewing the SQL Health Check and mapping out a strategy
for improvements the work begins. Daily
reports of changes will be sent and carefully review for any adverse reaction.
This also take advantage of our experience in working with your application vendor
for improvements and changes.
Most of the time, our clients are short in having real
maintenance procedures in place to clean and tidy the servers. Many items need constant maintenance like tables,
history, and files. The bonus you get as
a client is a set of tried and tested maintenance jobs that do this for
you. These scripts and jobs alone make
the health check pay for itself.
This is milestone for you.
When we finish phase 2, your server will be running better than ever and
essentials like backups and server maintenance can be checked off the list. Usually this takes 60 days for critical servers
due to small windows for maintenance.
phase 3 - database tunning
This is the 3rd step in cleaning up your server. At this point, all items with infrastructure and server level items have been review and cleaned up. This final step deals with database level items.
Database level items like indexes and datafile strategy come into play and get adjusted. Again, working closely with your application vendor to make changes and improvements. The application guys are great and have a lot to do, but making their application tunned for SQL Server is not something that is out in front for them. I have had some cases that we have made changes that had a 10x improvement on performance. In some cases, the staff wondered if the procedure ran at all because it ran so fast.
We can help.
