This has been a somewhat scattered week. As I alluded to earlier, my mind has been pulled in all different directions after a week of training and listening to presentations. I really have to work on writing my ideas down somewhere, as I have them, and getting them out of my head until I’m ready to deal with them. At the moment, I’m into a few projects.
Automating development database creation
As a takeaway to the “4 hour DBA” session this weekend, I’ve decided to create a way to allow developers to create their own databases/logins in our Dev environment. Rather than grant them all db_creator and security_admin and, well, create the Wild Wild West, I’m working with one of our developers to create a web form front end that will pass required parameters to a stored procedure. The procedure will check for the existence of the database, and the existence of the requested login. If the login exists, the developer will need to provide the correct password. An application name will also be required, and will be logged along with the database name, db_owner, creation date, and the developer’s login. One of the biggest problems we have is databases in Dev that are “forgotten”. A developer requests it and somewhere down the line everyone forgets about it and what it was for to begin with and I’m left asking everyone “do you know anything about database X?” Not fun. And why me, you might ask? Because I’m the one who developed and maintains our SQL Server inventory database. Which leads me to…
Upgrading our SQL Server inventory to 2008
A long time ago I wrote a few SSIS packages that go to each SQL Server instance and collect different information and store it in a central repository. This is in SSIS 2005 currently. It also resides in our Dev environment. Leaving it in Dev was fine for a long time, the DBAs were the only ones who used the information. But recently I’ve opened it up to other users who were looking for that information, and I’ve published some MS Reporting Services reports for our Windows Admin group to reference when they’re scheduling outages, etc. So, it needs to go to Production. And if I’m doing that, I might as well migrate it to SSIS 2008. And if I’m doing that, I might as well take another look and see if there’s a better way to do this.
Preparing a presentation
Another thing on my plate is preparing my very first presentation. At work we have monthly developer forum presentations on a variety of subjects, and I volunteered to present on SQL Server features that developers could be using but probably aren’t. (Note to self: Need to come up with a snappier title.) I’m planning on covering Service Broker, database snapshots, and data compression. All topics that I’ve covered here and I feel comfortable enough with to present to my coworkers. It’s not going to happen for a couple of months, but I really need to start organizing my thoughts and making notes.
There are other things I’m doing, of course, routine tasks that are simply part of the job. But these are the bigger ones I’m focusing on now. The ones that I’ll be working on when my instant messenger status changes to “Do Not Disturb.” 🙂
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