Maintenance Windows
I read a lot of blogs, usually. So far this week, it hasn’t worked out that way. I’ve been really busy at work, and the days seem to fly by.
One of the things I started doing was taking an inventory of all of the database servers on our network. There are roughly 20 that I need to be aware of, and about 15 that I need to be supporting. So one of the first things I started dong was inventorying what we have. What I saw was a call for action. When you factor in service packs, we had six different versions of SQL Server in the environment. In my eyes, we should have two, SQL 2000 SP4 and SQL 2005 SP2. Everything should be at the most recent stable version of the major release. At least that’s how I see it. So after talking to my boss, we’re identified eight servers that require action. I’m a freak for consistency.
This is where it gets good. We were talking about one application that’s owned by marketing, and the other is owned by engineering. I asked who I should talk to in the business for scheduling downtime. He gave me names. In fact, he called the guy from engineering while I was still in the office, and the business owner takes responsibility for letting the appropriate people within (or outside) the business know that a system will be down. IT doesn’t own responsibility for notifying the user community in these cases. After my last company where IT was responsible for everything, this is really great.
After a few days, I’m really digging my job. Sure, there are a few things I really miss about Shawmut. How could there not be? At the same time, I’m now working for a technology company, which in itself is cool. Better yet, I’m working for one that understands the need for scheduled downtime and maintenance windows. My new company has a diverse employee base, and people just accept people for their talent.
As far as my work, I like to think I’m kicking some ass right now. Taking a cue from someone I learned a lot from at Shawmut, my first step right now is collecting information. (and getting things on a consistent version) I’m starting to collect database file sizes on a nightly basis so that we can trend this. I’m also collecting things like drive space, versions, revisions, and service pack levels. We’re putting it all into a centralized database so that it can be reported upon.
At Shawmut, I had one primary database server that had almost all of our key business applications on it, a non-critical apps server, and a bunch of little DB servers that did other things. Here, I have about 15 servers. At Shawmut, I used Crystal to pull data, and here I need to start using Microsoft’s Reporting services. It’s a learning curve, but a good challenge for me.
One thing I don’t like is that Shawmut was really good about sending us to user conferences, and I don’t think my boss here is quite the fan. I was hoping to go to the SQL PASS conference this year, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. I may be going to training for our ERP system later in the year, though. Atlanta in October may not be so bad.
Mike,
i have no idea what the hell you are talking about with all these servers...LOL. But I am happy to hear the new job is working out for you and you enjoy the work!!!! i can’t wait to finaly meet yuou and sample some of your delicious cooking and baffle you with my shop talk… So we had a 10-18 on main road. 36 rolled as back up and we had a 10-42 and had to call in farmington for the k9 and have air one on standby etc etc..lolPosted by on 07/03 at 07:40 PM
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