Roman Rehak: 24/7 Database Administration + Database Mail Unleashed

Two for Tuesday
1) Database Mail Unleashed
2) 24/7 Database Administration
Roman Rehak
Principal Database Architect
MyWebGrocer
Burlington, VT

Professional Background
• Principal Database Architect/DBA Team Manager at MyWebGrocer
• Independent SQL Server consultant
• Specialize in
 SQL Server administration, High Availability
 Data Access, ADO.NET, SSIS, data exchange
• Writer for Visual Studio Magazine, SQL Server Magazine,
SearchSQLServer.com
• Involved in Professional Association for SQL Server (www.sqlpass.org)
 Speaker at 2002, 2003, 2006 PASS Community Summit
 Member of Program Committee the last 7 years
 Track Leader for “Database and Application Development” track
• DevTeach /SQLTeach Chair for SQL Server
• President of Vermont SQL Server User Group
• Blog: http://sqlblog.com/blogs/roman_rehak

Part 1
Database Mail Unleashed

SQL Mail and why it sucks
• Used in SQL Server 2000 and prior versions
• Based on and relying on MAPI
• Not supported on cluster instances
• Many, many issues
 Required Outlook installation
 Messages stuck in Outbox
 Unless Outlook opened all the time
 Works with SMTP, but can hang SQL Server
 If SMTP server stopped or not accessible

If you are stuck with 2000 for now
• Use xp_smtp_sendmail instead
• Written by Gert Drapers
• Uses SMTP only
• Easy to set up
• Powerful interface
 HTML output
 Attachments
• http://www.sqldev.net/xp/xpsmtp.htm
• http://mreschke.com/topic/167/SMTP+from+MSSQL+Proce
dure

Database Mail
• No More MAPI!!!
• SMTP based
• Asynchronous processing
 Uses Service Broker
• Robust
• Scalable
• Fault tolerant

Database Mail architecture
• Profile
 This is what you specify when calling mail sp
• Accounts
 Contains details about SMTP servers
• System views
 For viewing sent emails, errors
• Security – role in msdb, public/private
• SQL Agent Mail

Profile
• Holds a collection of SMTP accounts
• Holds security details
 Private and Public settings
• Priority for selecting order of accounts
 Starts with lowest, goes up
 Once email is sent, it keeps using the first successful account until it fails
 Once last successful account fails, starts at 1 again

SMTP Account
• Contains settings for a single SMTP Server
 Server name
 Port
 Reply-To email address
• Three authentication methods
 Windows Authentication
 Basic Authentication
 Works with ISP SMTP servers
 Anonymous Authentication
• Can be used by multiple profiles

What happens when you send email
• Mail is queued up in mail queue in msdb
• Sp_send_dbmail returns immediately
 Further mail processing is asynchronous
• New row appears in sysmail_allitems
 Status is unsent
• DB Mail executable is notified
• DB Mail attempts delivery (possibly retrying)
• On success, status is updated to sent
• On failure, status is updated to failed

Security
• Mail is off by default
 Enable with wizard or sp_configure
• Msdb has a new role – DatabaseMailUserRole
 Add DB users to grant send mail privileges
• Profile security
 Public for all users in the database
 Private for specific users
• Control over attachments
 Max size, prohibited file extensions

System views in msdb
• sysmail_allitems
 Shows all mail messages
• sysmail_faileditems
 Might be useful to monitor
• sysmail_sentitems
• sysmail_unsentitems
• sysmail_event_log
 Shows status and error messages
• sysmail_mailattachments

Utilizing DB Mail in notifications
• Can be easily used with SQL Agent
• Create a SQL Operator
 Use valid email
• Configure SQL Agent to use DB MAIL
 Select Database Mail profile to be used
 SQL Agent NEEDS TO BE RESTARTED
• Tips for SQL Agent notifications
 Notify on failures ONLY
 Include server name in profile
 Set up folders and rules (labels in Gmail)

DB Mail Best Practices
• Configure alternate account for failover
• If busy, spread over different SMTP servers
 Use profiles to load balance
• Purge old emails/logs when not needed
 sysmail_delete_mailitems_sp (purges messages)
 sysmail_delete_log_sp (purges mail logs)
 Determine retention period
 Use scheduled job to purge
• Keep off if not needed

• Create a default profile
• Utilize with SQL Agent
• Keep security tight
• Do not use multiple emails in TO, CC or BCC
 Possible bug in DB Mail
 If one emails fails, processing stops, then retries again
 Successful emails up to the point of failure might get multiple copies until
processing is stopped
• Distinguish between QA/Dev and Production

• Use when it makes sense
 Don’t turn this your mass/spam mailer
 Although scalable, SQL Server has other things to do
• Good use
 SQL Agent alerts and notifications
 Emailing errors from jobs, SSIS, backend processing
 Data driven subscriptions
 Small to medium scale email in applications
 Keep scalability in mind

Part 2
24/7 Database Administration

Agenda
• High Availability Overview
• SQL Server High Availability options
• Case Study - HA with mirroring
• Maintaining Standby Servers
• Preventing downtime
• Minimizing downtime
• Questions

24/7 Database Administration
• Administering databases that need to run 24/7
 Extremely difficult
 Certain downtime required to do Windows updates, etc…
 Small periodic maintenance window can make a big difference
• High Availability is extremely important
 Different types, level of complexity, pros and cons with each
 Don’t believe Microsoft marketing
• Requires planning - drills are crucial
 “Si vis pacem, para bellum”
 Things unexpected do happen, but we can learn from them
 Need to have monitoring and alerts in place
• Having a talented and dedicated team is crucial

Successful High Availability components
• High availability options at the SQL Server level
• High availability at the hardware level
• Monitoring
• Alerts and notifications
• Trained and responsive team
• Emergency response procedures
• Emergency drills
• Sufficient documentation

SQL Server High Availability
• The true HA does not exist yet
• SQL Server fundamentally remains a single point of failure
• Different options exist
 Each has prons and cons
 Failing database(s) over is easy, but SQL Agent jobs need attention too
 SQL Server Clustering got it close, but there were too many issues to make
it hard to run reliably
• What we need is a true, failure transparent cluster
• In the meantime
 Learn what’s available
 Pick the right technology/tools

Native Replication
• When to use
 Expertise in the house
 Publishing will not affect data availability
 Deadlocks while publishing
 Published tables get locked up
• Suitable
 Data redundancy
 Less suitable as an application backend
• If you use it
 Implement alerts when failures occur
 Respond quickly
 Protect subscribers with triggers, read-only privileges

Restored Database Copies
• Simple and effective way of spreading data load
• Suitable when data latency is not super high
• Added benefit – testing your backups
• Good uses
 Reporting server
 Source for Data Warehouse extracts
 Application – use separate connection string for data older that X number of
hours
• You may need to kick off custom SQL after a restore
 Logins, permissions, additional objects, etc…
• It can provide partial High Availability (order history, …)

SQL Server Clustering
• Multiple physical nodes create a virtual node
• Some learning curve but it has become easier
• One huge advantage – exposed by a virtual name,
regardless of what node it’s running on
• Failover is transparent
• You lose existing connections
• No changes in connection strings needed
• Scheduled jobs continue to work
• Good hardware recommended

AlwaysOn
• New in SQL Server 2012
• Powerful but complex
• Requires Enterprise license for both SQL Server and
Windows to get all features
• Improvements
 Database availability groups
 Exposed as a single endpoint for connection strings
 More than one replica
 Data on replicas can be used for read-only access
• This may not work for small companies

Database Mirroring
• Database is mirrored to another server
• In case of an issue, you can failover to mirror server
 Manual failover
 Automatic failover
• Transactions applied to mirror
 High Performance – asynchronous
 High Safety - synchronous
• Not server level
 Need to maintain logins, jobs, etc
• Database not available on mirror
 But, you can create a snapshot
 Possibly HA/load balancing option

Database Mirroring Tips
• Script it out
 The wizard is OK, but tedious when doing 10+ databases
• Increase the default timeout
 10 seconds not enough
 ALTER DATABASE Foo SET PARTNER TIMEOUT 120
• Do not mirror to an SSD drive if possible
 Replaying of transaction log different than on the primary
 6 times more I/O
• Set up alerts
 Several events, you probably want to know if a failover occurred
• Set up backups on both sides
 Use “Ignore databases not online” in the backup task (Maintenance Plans)

Dual-server deployment
• Needed anywhere you use a standby machine (AlwaysOn,
Database Mirroring, SQL Server Clustering, Log Shipping)
• Deploy to each SQL Server instance
 SQL Logins
 Scheduled jobs
 Linked Servers
 Note – N/A for clustering
• Deploy to each physical computer
 Powershell scripts
 SQL scripts
 Executables/DLL components
 SSIS packages

Dual-server deployment tools
• Scripting logins
 Script out logins on primary, apply to standby servers
 Use my script to preserve SIDs for SQL Server logins
 Make sure you have fast access to passwords if needed
• Synchronizing scheduled jobs
 Many different options out there
 You can use my SSIS package
 Generates scripts multiple servers, saves to a folder
 Typically you can ignore replication and maintenance plans jobs
 Utilize categories to manage/script only what you need
• Use automation
 Sqlcmd
 Powershell

Preventing downtime
• Extensive monitoring
 Performance (3rd party tools)
 Low disk space
 Transaction logs growing too large
 Failed replication
 Paused/Suspended mirroring
 Not setting up log backups
 Disabling log backups
• Set up alerts
 Failed jobs, mirroring disconnects, replication hiccups
 Page only when needed
• Distribute email notification handling within the team
• Do not notify of success unless you really need it

Preventing downtime
• Utilize Policy Management
 Many possible types of alerts can be easily created
 Examples
 Email us when no full backup was done within last 25 hours
 Email us when no log backup was done within last 2 hours
 Many other possibilities
• Invest in good hardware
 EBay is not your friend
• Run DBCC periodically
• Use tools for database access, not direct SQL
 If you need direct updates, train people to COMMIT

Preventing downtime
• DBA instinct
• Learn from your incidents
• Build checklists for common procedures
 Example – Enable what you disabled, etc..
• Build a KB/Wiki/Whatever for your company
• Cross-train the team members
 DBA Mirroring
 At least two people to be SME, ideally more than that

Warning - SSD/RAMSAN drives
• Great for speed increase
• Mainly for READS, much less for WRITES
• Not suitable for transaction logs
• Potential issues
 Single point of failure
 The number of good sectors does decrease
 Database mirroring causes fast wear&tear
• If you use them
 Consider implementing an array of SSDs

Minimizing downtime
• Pager is very important for quick response
 Extra compensation makes a difference
 Per week or per incident
• Sufficient documentation
 Who uses what, when, how, emergency contacts, downtime implications,
etc…
 Development team input required
• Demand regular maintenance nights
 Upgrades, re-indexing, table locking ops, etc
• Have “Maintenance pages” ready to go
 Takes pressure off somewhat
• Tell execs and managers to back off

Minimizing downtime
• Utilize automation to rebuild things
 Wizards are great but slow
 Scripting is your friend here
 Examples – rebuild database mirroring, replication
• Data Center tips
 Make sure multiple employees are familiar with the data center
 Utilize “Remote Hands” service
 Line up “Remote Hands” for SQL Server restarts and reboots
 If you lose power – BRING DOMAIN CONTROLLERS ONLINE FIRST!
• Develop procedures for possible SQL Server issue
 SUSPECT database
 Losing TEMPDB data or log drive
 Losing MASTER database

Questions?
• Email: roman@arianna.net

Roman Rehak: 24/7 Database Administration + Database Mail Unleashed

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Roman Rehak: 24/7 Database Administration + Database Mail Unleashed