© 2013, Envionmental Systems Coporation Improving StackVision Server Reliability and Monitoring June, 2013

© 2013, Envionmental Systems Coporation

Improving StackVision Server Reliability and Monitoring

June, 2013


No Webinar – July 4th Holiday WeekWorking with ProcessNow – 7/10Overview of StackStudio – 7/17

Email suggested topics to [email protected]

Upcoming Webinars

mailto:[email protected]


Other ESC Trainings

Managing Your DAS Training - Austin, TXAugust 20th –August 23rd


Housekeeping

• Please feel free to ask questions at any point of the presentation.

• Please ask all questions through the chat window as all Phones are on mute to minimize background noise.

• We will have a few polling questions throughout the presentation.


About me: Daniel Frome

5+ years of experience @ ESC (Development/IT)

IT + DBA + SV Superuser = Dangerous

Server Management

Hosted Private Cloud Manager for Remote Services

Troubleshooter (Work with Support)


Topics

Look at monitoring methodology

Monitoring – using SQL alerts and Database Mail

DBCC CheckDB (Integrity Checks)

Disaster Recovery Planning

Various real-life scary encounters (names have been changed to protect the innocent).

Survey Question #1


Reactive Take immediate action after, no monitoring, just get a call from

an operator that “something isn’t working right”.

Proactive Set up alerts and monitoring

Preventive Maintenance, Patching, Process Planning, Reviewing Lessons

Learned


Methodology

Identify

How do we determine that we are having a problem?

Diagnose

How do we isolate the root cause of a performance problem?

Resolve

How do we fix the problem or stop it from recurring?


Reactive Scenarios

Server is not responding

Server is frizzing (alarm, blinking amber/red lights, etc)

Data Controllers are not communicating with the server

Low disk space alarms

Data corruption

Action must be taken immediately!


Be Proactive

Anti-Virus Setting

Exclude for scan the *.mdf, ldf, ndf, .bak or other backup extensions

Review Services

Do you have unnecessary services/programs running?

Remove Unnecessary Software

Do you need all of the programs installed on your ESC|StackVision server?

Operating System (OS) patches*

Have you applied the latest firmware to your servers?

Action is taken first!


Be Proactive (cont.)

Hardware firmware updating (Raid/Bios/NIC)*

• Have you applied the latest firmware to your servers?

Hardware

• Spare Parts! Extra hard drives are a must

Clean out the dust – literally

• Dust and other foreign debris can harm sensitive electronics/components

Baseline

* Be careful, try to do some research before applying patching in production environment! (Tale from trenches)


Survey Question #2


SQL Toolset:

SQL Server Reports

Database Mail

Notifications


SQL Server Management Studio Reports

◦ Standard Reports Easily executed from inside SMSS

◦ Server Dashboard

◦ Backup/Restore Events

◦ Memory Consumption

◦ Job execution status

A full list with in-depth discussion can be found here:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/buckwoody/archive/2008/04/17/sql-server-management-studio-standard-reports-the-full-list.aspx

(copy and paste the above link if it fails to load)









Database Mail

◦ Get SMTP information

◦ Configure Database Mail

◦ Test email

◦ Setup Operator Account(s)

◦ Set up Alerts

◦ Set up SQL Agent to utilize DB Mail for Alerts

Hint: Anytime you change the SQL Agent Properties you need to restart the SQL Agent Service (but not SQL Server) for the change to take effect






StackVision About 95% of everything StackVision related is in the

StackVision database

◦Configuration

◦Data

◦Reports – stored in Report Server Database


SQL Server and StackVision Mythical Performance Concerns

Memory usage

Database Size

Less Size = More performance

Purging in StackStudio

Raw versus Average

Shrinking the database (or data files)


Disaster Recovery Planning

Only backup what you need to:◦ SQL Server Backups – which one fits for you?

Full Differential Incremental (Transaction Log)

Backups only contain pages that contain actual data◦ 40GB database with 25% free space will be 30GB

uncompressed

Backups can be compressed which consumes more CPU but is also faster (less I/O), and the compression ratio is generally 3-4x

◦ 185GB Database = ~36GB compressed

*Compression is only available with SQL 2008R2 (and later) and SQL 2008 Enterprise / Development


DBCC CheckDB (Integrity Checks)

DBCC CheckDB (‘Your Database’) WITH ALL ERRORMSGS, NO_INFOMSGS

◦ Checks not only the logical integrity (e.g. Index Trees and relationships), but also the physical integrity of each page.

◦ Data is stored on 8K pages that comprise a “b-tree” for indexing (like a phonebook).

◦ Errors

◦ Worsen over time


DR (cont)

Where are your backups?

◦ Local – (Good) at least you have “a” backup

RAID 1+0 or 5 helps

Pros: Fast Backup (local)

Cons: It’s local

◦ USB/different physical drive (Better) –

Pros: If the server dies you have something to restore from

Cons If your server catches fire/flooding/stack falls on server, out of luck

◦ Offsite/NAS (Best) -

Pros: Offsite storage

Cons: Generally takes longer to perform backups


DR (cont. 2)

Have a PLAN

◦ Spare Server? ESC Test License?

◦ How long will it take? Run a test (bring a server online and installed ready to poll)

◦ Lessons Learned – revaluate plan quarterly/yearly

◦ Retention

◦ Survey Question #3 (Last one I swear)


Summary

Monitoring◦ Do something, even if it’s not automated

Planning◦ Backup & Monitor only what you need

Test & Review◦ Test processes, review, and adjust accordingly


References

Links and References

Step-by-Step Video of Job creation and mail setup via video: (also covers reports) 3 parts

http://envirosys.com/media/g/fall_2011_new_orleans_presentations/default.aspx

Database Maintenance Whitepaper and Best

Practices: http://envirosys.com/esc/svsupport/pages/stackvision-downloads.aspx



http://envirosys.com/esc/svsupport/pages/stackvision-downloads.aspx

http://envirosys.com/esc/svsupport/pages/stackvision-downloads.aspx

Documents

© 2013, Envionmental Systems Coporation Improving StackVision Server Reliability and Monitoring June, 2013