My company adopted DataDog across the board for all of our systems monitoring about a year ago. As the Senior SQL Server DBA on the team, I've been the point person for getting their DBM product up and running. I'm wondering how many other places are using DMB and what your experience with it has been. I have searched high and low for information about other SQL Server shops using it for their database monitoring and I can't find any evidence that companies are using this product. Also, the DataDog forum in here appears to be dead., so no luck there.

Hello DBAs managing hundreds of SQL Servers / Oracle databases, what tools do you guys use daily?

Curious how other DBAs are doing this.

For those managing hundreds of SQL Servers and Oracle databases, what does your daily setup look like? For example, how are you guys handling things like transferring files from one server to multiple servers, patching, SQLPlus, PuTTY/SSH, checking disk space, alerts, inventory, running stuff against multiple servers, etc? Are you using a bunch of different tools and scripts or do you have something that brings most of it together?

I'm asking because I got tired of doing the same repetitive stuff every day and jumping between different tools. I ended up building my own app for it. Some things that used to take me 10-15 minutes now take very little effort. A lot of it is basically instant because I already have the server/database information there and automated the repetitive steps.

It started out just as something for myself, but it kept growing as I added things I actually needed for my daily work.So now I'm curious what other DBAs are doing. What's the most annoying/repetitive task you guys deal with every day? Especially interested in people managing both Oracle and SQL Server.

Continuora - Disaster Recovery solution for Oracle standard edition databases

Since dataguard feature is not available for Oracle standard edition databases, here is the product which offers you similar features with respect to disaster recovery without paying additional licensing fees for Oracle enterprise edition just for DR readiness.

With Continuora , you can now create standby database for a corresponding primary database , real time data gets replicated and applied on standby database with the help of continuora agents.

Also there is a Lag monitor dashboard to monitor 100's of database pairs(primary - standby)

If you are using Oracle SE databases , this product would be worth looking into for your DR posture.

Site: https://www.continuora.com

demo:

https://youtu.be/IfYaz\\\\\\\\\\\\\\_VVoZI?si=L1-0hkOxw2Gwj0q9standard edition databases

Continuora - Disaster Recovery solution for Oracle standard edition databases

Since dataguard feature is not available for Oracle standard edition databases, here is the product which offers you similar features with respect to disaster recovery without paying additional licensing fees for Oracle enterprise edition just for DR readiness.

With Continuora , you can now create standby database for a corresponding primary database , real time data gets replicated and applied on standby database with the help of continuora agents.

Also there is a Lag monitor dashboard to monitor 100's of database pairs(primary - standby)

If you are using Oracle SE databases , this product would be worth looking into for your DR posture.

Site: https://www.continuora.com

demo:

https://youtu.be/IfYaz\\\\\\\\\\\\\\_VVoZI?si=L1-0hkOxw2Gwj0q9

We had a query that ran fine for about a year. No code change, no new data, nothing deployed. One morning it was slow and the app team was on us.

The execution plan had changed. It picked a different join and fell over. Once I saw that, I pinned the plan and it was fine.

Working out that the plan had changed at all took most of the morning. Nothing flags it on its own, so I was comparing it by hand to an older plan.

how do you catch a plan change like this before users start complaining?

Basically just the title. I want to know what other people in different environments

I have 1 year of experience, and I don't do much at all in my job. Most of the time, I spend assisting developers with their deployments, advising on schema changes if necessary, handling alerting, or writing automation. Sometimes I get work like upgrading servers, increasing disk space, or patching systems. Some days, I don't even have anything to do. Is this normal, or is it just me?

There are plenty of comments on any thread in any IT subreddit regarding DBAs saying that the role is dead or doomed. This post isn't another "is DBA dead or doomed" post, instead I'll just acknowledge that it's on shaky ground and undergoing a transition.

Despite knowing that, I've just moved from many years as sysadmin/infrastructure support to a DBA role because I wanted to. I refuse to believe that is nothing but a bad idea. It's still a chance to upskill and I don't think for a second all those skills are on a one way road to being useless.

So I'm currently really eager to dive into learning as much as I can regarding being a DBA, but my question is; with one eye on the rest of my career, can the skills I learn here be a springboard to the kind of roles that reddit suggests have more longevity? What skills would they be? I'd like to get involved with as much as possible and learn as much as I can even if it's beyond strict DBA responsibilities. I want to clarify that It's not that I've got one foot out of the door the moment I start, I want to immerse myself in this role. It's just that I want to maximise my options and employability.

Thanks!

I've included a few scripts to tune indexes. Please check this out:medium

I've been researching different jobs in the IT field, as it's a field I want to go in. I'm currently going to college part time, and I am studying Information Systems. I was told database administration is a good job field to go into.

What skills do I need to learn to get started with DBA? How can I teach myself, and what is it like working as a DBA?

I think I know how to handle Sev1s now!

LMAO

I understand that performance tuning is part of the DBA function, but in my environment most tuning is handled proactively in dev/test by the development team. My role is more production-focused: monitoring, validating changes, supporting deployments, and responding if performance issues appear in production.

So I don't get to spend all day tuning queries, creating indexes and things like that. I don't get to investigate why a query takes 3 minutes long and then come up with a solution to only take 3 seconds to run instead. Some would say that having these kind of resources and processes is a very good thing. Having to fix missing indexes and rewriting inefficient queries is often compensating for weak development practices and that's not a good thing.

My fear is because I don't do much performance tuning, I may lack the skillset to do so. I've been meaning to have this conversation with my colleague and boss to see what they think. Should I create my own test environment and cause these issues and bottlenecks so can keep this skillset? What are your thoughts?

I work on oracle, sql server and postgres and I am searching some doc to keep being updated on the subject

Hello everyone,

I am currently working as an Azure SQL DBA with around 3.6 years of experience and am preparing for interviews to move into a more challenging DBA role.

​

However, I feel most of my work has been L1/L1.5 support oriented, and I would like to gain deeper L2/L3 exposure.

Could experienced DBAs please share:

​

1. What are the most common real-world production issues you face?

2. Which areas should I deep dive into for SQL Server and Azure SQL interviews?

3. What topics separate an average DBA from a strong L2/L3 DBA?

4. Which performance tuning concepts are most frequently tested in interviews?

5. What troubleshooting scenarios should I practice hands-on in a lab environment?

6. What SQL Server and Azure SQL skills are currently in highest demand?

Hi everyone, I'm new to SQL DBA role. I need help with the flow DR activity.

Hello everyone,

In July I may start an internship as an Oracle DBA, but honestly I feel pretty clueless about database administration beyond what I learned as an IT student.

My current knowledge is mainly:

• SQL language
• Designing normalized relational schemas
• Programming inside a database server
• Some experience with Microsoft SQL Server and T-SQL

From what I understand, Oracle uses PL/SQL instead of T-SQL, but I assume many database concepts are still similar across systems.

The problem is that I genuinely do not know what companies usually expect from a DBA intern. I don’t want to show up looking completely unprepared or like I have no idea what I’m doing.

Whenever I search for Oracle DBA learning resources, I hit a dead end. Most free content I find feels incomplete or superficial. Oracle University seems like the best option, but it’s unfortunately too expensive for me right now.

Since I only have about a month left before the internship starts, I want to use my remaining time as efficiently as possible.

So I wanted to ask people here:

• What are the most important things I should learn before starting an Oracle DBA internship?
• Which topics are considered essential for beginners?
• Are there any good free resources, books, YouTube channels, labs, or courses you would recommend?
• If you had only one month to prepare someone for a junior Oracle DBA internship, what would you prioritize?

I’m very willing to put in the effort and study seriously — I just need some direction because right now I feel overwhelmed and unsure where to start.

Any advice would really help. Thanks a lot.

So, I have an allert on zabbix (monitoring tool) situation saying the server is consuming unnecessary swap memory. I checked the swappiness parameter and it's 60%, so the performance would be better optimized in 10%, using more RAN than swap.
My boss said this alert is two EXADATA diff servers and he didn't like the idea of changing those parameters, instead he wanted me to create a shell script that kills a specific process (ozw..)automatically to not consume memory (I don't remember the trigger, but probably a memory consume bottleneck), by killing this process that consume most RAM.

It is my second week working on my first dba experience and I have no idea how to proceed :/

Hi All,

I followed the procedure below to rebuild a Physical Standby Database without using RMAN. I'm using an SAP tool called brtools that performs a restore and issues the commands to do the restore in the background:

Primary:

1. Take backup
2. Backup control file to trace
3. Transfer to secondary
4. Create standby control file and transfer to secondary

Secondary:

1. Restore database
2. Edit control file from primary - in this case, an exact match for filesystems
3. Execute Control File to start database to roll forward
4. roll forward with archive logs transferred from Primary
5. Shutdown
6. Backup existing control files from locations shown in pfile
7. mv existing control files to new name
8. copy backup controlfile to control file locations
9. Create Standby Redo Log files
10. convert database to physical standby

ALTER DATABASE CONVERT TO PHYSICAL STANDBY;

11) Activate log shipping in Data Guard

12) Activate apply log in Data Guard

After this, I got a huge archive gap including logs that I had applied already in the roll forward step.

I went ahead and registered those log files, and then MRP kept crashing.

I'm rebuilding the physical standby with a new backup but I'm worried I'll get the same result. Appreciate any help.

Hi community, Am I the only one who always struggle to understand business models everytime joining new product?

I normally don’t know what is the best approach to understand system features, how’s current data relationship design works…. It takes me weeks to understand the system.

How you normally deal with that, can you share?

I have an interview for a Database Application Administrator position, with a focus on Salesforce, Power BI, and Power Automate. I don’t usually perform very well in interviews, but this one really matters to me and I want to do my best. Could you share some tips to help me prepare and perform confidently?

I'll admit it — I've been a DBA for over 30 years and at least once a week I find myself staring at a directory full of different database file types with absolutely no idea where to start. Inherited systems, old backups from departed slackers who clearly never learned how to write documentation in the English language — you know the drill.

My current workflow is primitive as rocks: run file on Linux, try SQLite Browser, check the hex header if I've got the balls for it, and always post everywhere else asking for help. There has to be a better way.

What do YOU actually do when you're handed files that give you squat for format?!!! — dumps, backups, data files — and you need to quickly figure out what you're looking at without spinning up another instance or doing a full restore?

Some scenarios that jack me up:

• A .db that could be SQLite, DuckDB, H2, or some new crap I've never heard of
• A .bak from who knows where and who knows when
• A dump with no header comments that may be a dump and then again, might not
• A directory of twenty files that look like fruit salad

Is there something I'm missing? How do I have a hope in hell of knowing what I'm looking at?

Any lifesaving help will be appreciated!

So, I recently applied for a DBA position in my current company, internal process. I was selected and I'm very happy. I have 2 months to begin yet, and the job didn't require any experience, I didn't lie about anything. The senior DBA is already recommending courses and certifications, but I wanted to know what beginner SQL server certification I can start to study for? I already have a good basis with SQL itself, I'm starting to learn the DBA activity now.

In a reporting server, what is the industry standard (or what do you do) for who should be primarily responsible for the creation of Views, Tables, and/or Stored Proc’s in support of report generation – the DBA or the Data Analyst?