Category Archives: SQL Server Administration

What are SQL Server DBA Responsibilities?

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This is one of the most frequently asked questions by people who are new to SQL Server. Since they are new to SQL Server, their concern is understandable. I was personally asked this question or this list multiple times and most recently, as comments to one of my blogs.

So I decided to list down a list of tasks and responsibilities carried out by a SQL Server DBA. Before further reading, let me tell you that roles and responsibilities of a SQL Server DBA varies from one organization to another as no two organizations IT setup are exactly similar.  For better understanding, the text in the parenthesis (Italicized blue font) is the subject area or chapter that has the topics to carryout the responsibilities…

  • Installation, Administration and Maintenance of SQL Server Instances. (Installing SQL Server)
  • Setup Test, Dev, Staging and Production Environments. (Installing SQL Server)
  • Create Users and assign permissions based on the level of database access the user would need. (Security)
  • Create Linked Servers to SQL Servers and other databases such as Oracle, Access, Informix etc. (Security and General Administration)
  • Design database Backup and Restoration Strategy. (Database Backups and SQL Server Agent)
  • Once created the database Backups, monitor those backups are being performed regularly. (SQL Server Agent)
  • From time to time recover the databases to a specific point of time, as per the requests. (Database Backups and Recovery)
  • Setup High-Availability as part Disaster Recovery Strategy for the Databases. (Failover Clustering, Database Mirroring, Log Shipping and Replication)
  • Troubleshoot various problems that arise in a day-to-day work and fix the issues. (Monitoring SQL Server Error Logs and checking your email alert (if there is one configured))
  • Monitoring and Performance Tuning; Physical Server Level, Database level (Database settings and options) and query tuning. (Creating and maintaining those Indexes, not performing database shrinking, memory settings, monitoring CPU usage and Disk I/O activity etc) 
  • Documenting major changes to the SQL Servers. (General)
  • Apply Service Packs. (General)

Note: These are only some of the roles carried out by a SQL Server DBA. If you have more questions, please let me know through comments.. 

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— Bru Medishetty

How to uninstall SQL Server 2012?

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This blog is actually in response to comments to one of my previous blogs Installing SQL Server 2012 Release Candidate 0 posted earlier this week. The user asked the steps to uninstall SQL Server 2012 RC 0, so I thought to write a short blog to help others also, who are looking for steps to uninstall SQL Server 2012, for that matter the steps to uninstall other versions like SQL Server 2008 R2 and 2008 are also very similar to the steps in this blog..

So let us look at the steps to uninstall SQL Server 2012. 

On the machine where SQL Server 2012 is installed (in my case it is Windows Server 2008 R2) clicks Start and select Control Panel.

When control panel is displayed, under Programs section, click Uninstall a program.

Then the list of programs and features installed on that machine is displayed as below.

Click on Microsoft SQL Server 2012 RC0 (as mentioned earlier, if you are trying to uninstall SQL Server 2008 or 2008 R2, choose that Version).  A small window similar to the SQL Server Installation splash screen is displayed.

Click on Remove and you should see Setup Support Rules windows displayed which is displayed below.

Click OK to proceed. In the next screen Select Instance screen, choose what you want to uninstall from that machine. There will be a drop down displayed from which we need to select the Instance which we want to uninstall now. If there are multiple Instances on that machine, you would need to be careful in choosing which Instance to uninstall. Also, the list of Instances and their Versions (if there are multiple instances) will be displayed in the a grid below for an overall summary of what are on that machine. Once you choose your SQL Server Instance click Next. In the next window (pic below) select the features that you want to install from the machine. Since I wanted to show the steps to uninstall the entire SQL Server 2012 setup, I selected all features. If your machine has other Versions of SQL Server like SQL 2008 or 2008 R2, some of these components should not be uninstalled.

Click Next to proceed.

Then, there are some removal checks that are done to make sure the uninstall will run smoothly. If there are no failures, click Next.

Click Remove to start the uninstall process of SQL Server 2012. You should be seeing the progress window of the SQL Server uninstall. Once the process is completed, there should be a final screen saying that SQL Server is uninstalled. I did not uninstall the SQL Server as I would need it to work on, so I have not shown those 2 screenshots..

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— Bru Medishetty

What are Versions and Editions in SQL Server?

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When I was adding (writing) new content in the recently started section Learn SQL Server for Beginners, I mentioned about SQL Server Versions and Editions. That section is written keeping in mind a beginner in SQL Server. In this blog post, I would like to explain in detail, and make things clear for those who have no prior knowledge of SQL Server Editions..

What are Versions and Editions?

When you read or listen something like SQL Server 2005, 2008, 2008 R2 and 2012, they are Versions of SQL Server.. Each time a major release of SQL Server is released, that is called a Version. With each of these new Versions, the SQL Server Software (a more simplistic term, instead of using terms like Database Engine and BI components) are designed for better performance, are more reliable and robust than the previous versions and these feature enhancements go on and on and on….

Now I hope you have a decent understanding of SQL Server Versions, so lets take a look at the what are Editions. Within those SQL Server Versions, there will be different flavors (Editions) of SQL Server released. Some of those Editions are Express, Workgroup, Standard, Developer and Enterprise Edition. Each of these Editions is released, keeping in view the end users requirements and the licensing cost for these Editions go higher as we move towards Enterprise Edition.

Express Edition is a free Edition, has various limitations (in terms of available features). It is most often installed on personal workstations, for example in situations where developers need the databases available when they are remote (at home) to write and test code for the applications.

Workgroup Edition has few more features that are suitable for smaller organizations (something like an individual store or a branch).

The next one is Standard Edition, which is good for mid-sized organization and has most of the features but not all. They are also used in large organizations for an individual group of applications which can be built and managed with those features available in Standard Edition.

Enterprise Edition is the most feature rich Edition and has all features and functionalities available in that SQL Server Version. Enterprise Edition is used Very Large Databases (VLDBs) and Mission-Critical Databases.

There are 2 more Editions, Enterprise Evaluation Edition which is has the same features as Enterprise Edition but expires after 180 days of installation. Developer Edition is a low cost (approx 50 bucks) Edition which does not expire, has no limitations and has the same features as Enterprise Edition. Important point to note, Microsoft does not recommend and support the usage of Developer Editions in a production Environment..

Note: This post is written focusing beginners so there is  no mention of the SQL Server features like Clustering, Database Mirroring, Database and backup Compression, Database Partitioning, Resource Governor, Policy Based Management etc. Lets keep that discussion for another time….

You might want to read a related blog, this is on Editions in SQL Server 2012.

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— Bru Medishetty