Evaluating Daily Checklist Against 1000 Servers using Policy Based Management

October 11-14, Seattle, WA

Evaluate your Daily Checklist against 100+ instances of SQL Server while you get a cup of coffeehttp://johnsterrett.com/go/dailychecklist

John SterrettSenior DBARemote DBA Experts

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What we will cover…

• What should be included in your daily checklist

• Build Policy Based Management Policies• Import Policy Based Management Policies• Automate execution of daily checklist• Providing reporting solution for daily

checklist

DBA-216| Evaluate Daily Checklist with PBM and CMS

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About Me….


• I am a Remote DBA Expert • Responsible 100+ Instances of SQL Server• Senior DBA on Integration Team

• Founder of WVPASS (SQL User Group)• Mid-Atlantic Regional Mentor• Host SQL Saturday #36 & #80• I reside in Wheeling, WV (Pittsburgh, PA)

4

My Story….

Urgency

Importance

Backups / RestoresCorruptionFailed mission critical SQL Jobs

Process improvementsContinuing educationProjectsIndex ManagementPerformance Tuning

Pittsburgh Steelers winning the Super Bowl

Everything else…

Failed JobsLow Disk Space

Comes from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey


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Daily Checklist Questions

Do you have a daily checklist?What is your daily checklist?• Full backups• Transactional Log backups• Free space• SQL Agents are enabled• SQL Agent jobs succeeded

How do you evaluate your daily checklist?• Central Management Server (CMS)• Policy Based Management (PBM)


6

Do you have a daily checklist?

46%

54%

YesNo


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What's in your daily checklist?

20%

19%

17%

19%

11%

8%5% Full Backups

succeededTransactional log backups succeededSQL Services are running SQL Agent jobs succeededDisks have free spaceData and Log files have free spaceOther


8

How do you evaluate your checklist?

0

5

10

15

20

25

3

97 7

21

3 2

How do you evaluate your daily checklist?


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Job Notifications…..


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Trust but verify…..

• Is the SQL Agent enabled for all servers?• Does email operator exist for all jobs?• Is the operator the same across all servers?• Is Database Mail enabled for all servers?


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I prefer notifications


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Policy Based Management

• Policy-Based Management is a system for managing one or more instances of SQL Server 2008 (* BOL).

• Some facets allow you to enforce standards with “On-Change – Prevent”

• Can import and export policies• Apply changes when evaluation fails• Policies can run against SQL 2000 & 2005


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I use PBM to do two things…

Prevent things from happening Apply changes Automate validation of checklists• Checklists are prone to human error.• Server configurations can change over time.

Daily checklist items we will validate• SQL Agent is enabled• SQL Agent Jobs• Full backups• Transactional Log backups• Free Space


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PBM Concepts and Terms

• Targets • facets• conditions• policy• categories• server restrictions


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PBM Example – Page Verify

Page VerifyPage Verify Policy

Database Target

Database Performance Facet

@PageVerify = true Condition

SQL Server 2005 or newer Server Restriction

On Schedule Evaluation Mode

http://www.littlekendra.com/2011/01/25/pageverify/


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Evaluation Modes

On Demand• Executed by user or powershell scriptsOn Schedule• Uses SQL Agent (Runs via powershell script)On Change – Prevent• Uses DDL Triggers• * Nested Triggers should be enabledOn Change – Log Only• uses event notificationFor More: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb510667%28SQL.100%29.aspx


http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb510667(SQL.100).aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb510667(SQL.100).aspx

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On-Change Evaluation….

Not all facets support On-change.• On Change – Log (17)• On Change – Prevent (12)• Application Role • Asymmetric Key• Database Role• Endpoint• Login Options• Multipart Name

• Resource Pool• Schema• Stored Procedure• Table Options• User Defined Function• User Options• View Options• Workload Group


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Where can I find policies?

Best Practices• SQL Server 2008 Feature Packs• C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\

Policies\DatabaseEngine\1033

Interwebs• http://www.mssqltips.com/category.asp?catid=89• Blogs• Bing or Google


http://www.mssqltips.com/category.asp?catid=89

http://www.mssqltips.com/category.asp?catid=89

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Policy Alerts

Message Number Evaluation Mode

34050 On change – prevent when policies are enabled for automatic evaluation.

34051 On change – prevent when the policy is on demand

30452 On Schedule

34053 On change – Log

* On demand cannot be enabled so there are no alerts.


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PBM Views

Views in MSDB database and dbo schema• syspolicy_policies• syspolicy_conditions• syspolicy_system_health_state• syspolicy_categories• syspolicy_policy_category_subscriptions• syspolicy_policy_execution_history• syspolicy_policy_execution_history_details• syspolicy_object_sets• syspolicy_target_sets

For more: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb510742.aspx


http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb510742.aspx

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PBM - ExecuteSQL

The ExecuteSql() function can be used against any facet and it'll be executed once for each target in the target set.

The proxy account is called ##MS_PolicyTsqlExecutionLogin## used for scheduled jobs

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlpbm/archive/2008/07/03/executesql.aspx


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PBM Gotchas!

• Cannot modify or create facets• Policies fail to read mount points as

separate locations• ExecuteSQL only supports @ObjectName

and @SchemaName • Reporting is very limited out of the box• On Change-Prevent is limited• Best Practice Policies may not be best

practice for your shop.


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PBM Demo

Import PoliciesCreate a CategoryExport PoliciesCreate PolicyEvaluate Policy• On-Demand• Scheduled• Apply Policy Change

View Policy History


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Central Management Server (CMS)

Similar to local server group except it’s a repository for your team.Group database servers• Environment• Version• Location

Apply scripts or policies against all servers in a groupNot all checklist items can be validated with PBMCan use SQL Server 2008 R2 Express


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CMS Internals

MSDB is used to store servers and groupsServers – msdb.dbo.sysmanagement_shared_registered_servers_internal

Groups – msdb.dbo.sysmanagement_shared_server_groups_internal


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CMS Security

• ServerGroupAdministratorRole role can manage the central management server.

• ServerGroupReaderRole role is required to connect to a central management server.

• Windows Authentication of the individual servers is used to execute t-sql and policies.


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First look at CMS


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DEMO!

Create Configuration Management ServerCreate GroupsRegister ServersExecute scripts against a groupExecute policy against a group


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CMS Gotchas!

• CMS itself cannot automate query or policy execution.

• CMS only supports windows authentication

• Query results are ordered by server name• Cannot include host server (Unless you

use 127.0.0.1 or add port number)• Query executes for all listed servers.

(Includes duplicates)


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Reporting - EPM Framework

http://epmframework.codeplex.com/EPMF leverages• Central Management Server• Policy-Based Management• PowerShell• XML• SQL Server Reporting Services


http://epmframework.codeplex.com/

http://epmframework.codeplex.com/

32DBA-216| Evaluate Daily Checklist with PBM and CMS

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Aaron Nelson – SQL University PowerShell Week


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DEMO!

Automate CMS with PowerShell


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Where to go from here?

Automate a daily checklist!

Go to http://johnsterrett.com/go/dailychecklist for reference material and sample code.

Session Code | Session Title

http://johnsterrett.com/go/dailychecklist

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Evaluating Daily Checklist Against 1000 Servers using Policy Based Management