SQL on Call Show Available Now
The latest SQL on Call show is live now and you can watch it on the site – in today’s show Chris closes out the series of top 10 SQL Server thoughts about 2007.
Also available:
[Watch] SelectViews, the SQL Server Show – Keeping up with technology, Microsoft interviews and more.
Manage Your SQLServers From Your Browser
You can manage from 1 to more than 250 different SQL Servers, all within your browser – without impacting the servers performance-wise. From the interface, you can pull performance information, baseline statistics, and more. You can even compare historical baseline server stats and current usage information to do server health comparisons. On top of all of this, you can pull information about performance where it doesn’t behave as expected. So, if things are acting up, you have information about where to start looking. Get more information here and check out SQL Power Tools.
Consensus on Managing Updates
Well, it seems that the most frequent approach now to managing updates may be a system of reviews of patches based on two things – a specific interval of time, and an awareness of "critical" updates. It’s sort of a "7 Habits…" approach – paying attention to the important items in a planned and controlled way.
Interval-type reviews
The first, the interval-based reviews, seems to be the most popular way of addressing the general service pack updates, full SQL Server version updates and that type of thing. Most are saying that they set up a process, about once every 6 months, to review and consider all service packs and updates (versions, updates, etc.) that were issued since the last update was applied. This is actually a really important point. If you opted NOT to install updates on that last review time-period, you really need to be considering all of the updates in the last *year* (in our example) since you haven’t done anything in those two time periods. This is key – don’t just consider what has happened since the last review. Based on your review, you can apply the updates, start the process of reviewing and/or testing major version releases, etc.
Critical updates
Critical updates are a bit more straightforward. You have to keep track of these updates as they release, from hotfixes to normal review of the "patch Tuesday" updates for bugs and system issues. Based on your review of these, and the applicability of the items to your own installation and usage of SQL Server, you set up a time to apply the updates out of sync with the 6 month cycle outlined in the interval reviews. This lets you address emergency/critical items in a timely manner and also gives you the mechanism for keeping the list of items to review in on your next, more relaxed, review cycle.
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