Evaluate Daily Checklist with PBM and CMS

Evaluate your Daily Checklist against 100+ instances of SQL Server while you get a cup of coffee
John Sterrett (@JohnSterrett)
http://johnsterrett.com/go/PBM
5/12/2011

Thank you Attendees & Sponsors

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I am not an expert but I stayed at a Holiday Inn once….
Founder of WVPASS (SQL UG)
I reside in Wheeling, WV (Pittsburgh, PA)
Work for Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP
Responsible 100+ Instances of SQL Server
Responsible for PeopleSoft
About Me….

My Story….
BackupsCorruptionFailed mission critical SQL Jobs
Failed Jobs
Low Disk Space
Urgency
Process improvements
Continuing education
Projects
Index Management
Performance Tuning
Pittsburgh Pirates winning the world series
Everything else…
Importance
Comes from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey

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)
Daily Checklist Questions

Daily Checklist

Daily Checklist?

Job Notifications…..

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?

I prefer notifications and….

Similar to local server group except it’s a repository for your team.
Group database servers
Environment
Version
Location
Apply scripts against all servers in a group
Not all checklist items can be validated with PBM
Can use SQL Server 2008 R2 Express
Central Management Server (CMS)

Which version of SQL should I use?

MSDB is used to store servers and groups
Servers – msdb.dbo.sysmanagement_shared_registered_servers_internal
Groups – msdb.dbo.sysmanagement_shared_server_groups_internal
CMS Internals

CMS Security
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.

First look at CMS

Create Configuration Management Server
Create Groups
Register Servers
Execute scripts against a group
Find missing backups
Find failed SQL Agent Jobs
Check SQL Agent Service is enabled
DEMO

CMS itself cannot automate query 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)
CMS Gotchas!

Leverage PowerShell to automate CMS
Aaron Nelson – SQL University PowerShell Week

DEMO!
Automate CMS with PowerShell

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
Policy-Based Management (PBM)

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
I use CMS & PBM to do two things…

Targets
facets
conditions
policy
categories
server restrictions
PBM Concepts and Terms

PBM Example – Page Verify
http://www.littlekendra.com/2011/01/25/pageverify/

On Demand
Executed by user or powershell scripts
On Schedule
Uses SQL Agent
On Change – Prevent
Uses DDL Triggers
* Nested Triggers should be enabled
On Change – Log Only
uses event notification
For More: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb510667%28SQL.100%29.aspx
Evaluation Modes

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
On-Change Evaluation….
Resource Pool
Schema
Stored Procedure
Table Options
User Defined Function
User Options
View Options
Workload Group

Best Practices
SQL Server 2008 Feature Packs
C:Program FilesMicrosoft SQL Server100ToolsPoliciesDatabaseEngine1033
Interwebs
http://www.mssqltips.com/category.asp?catid=89
Blogs
Bing or Google
Where can I find policies?

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

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
PBM Views

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

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.
Gotchas!

Create a Category
Import Policies
Export Policies
Create Policy
Evaluate Policy
On-Demand
Scheduled
On Change – Prevent
On Change – Log
Apply Policy
Evaluate Policy on Multiple Servers using CMS
View Policy History
PBM Demo!

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

Show EMPF…
DEMO!

All reference material can be found at http://johnsterrett.com/go/PBM
Books On Line
Administering Servers by Using Policy-Based Management
Book
Pro SQL Server 2008 Policy-Based Management
White Papers
Enterprise Policy Management Framework with SQL Server 2008
SQL Server 2008 Policy-Based Management
Web
www.mssqltips.com
Where you should go from here?

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THANK YOU!
For attending this session and PASS SQLRally Orlando, Florida
Sponsored by Dell
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Evaluate Daily Checklist with PBM and CMS

by John Sterrett on May 12, 2011

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Evaluate Daily Checklist with PBM and CMS — Presentation Transcript