Working With A SQL Server Consultant Checklist: Tools Of The Trade

Accustomed

There are thousands of scripts out there on the internet that tell you different things about SQL Server.

Some are packaged nicely into a stored procedure, and others… aren’t. I like to make things as easy as possible for folks to take and run, without worrying about database context or  SQL Server version/edition compatibility.

In shops with DBAs on staff, I get nervous when I see (or don’t see) certain things:

• sp_WhoIsActive isn’t installed
• sp_Blitz scripts are years out of date
• They’re using maintenance plans instead of Ola’s scripts

You don’t have to look every day, but you should check in every three months or so to see if your favorite troubleshooting scripts have any updates to them.

Thankfully, GitHub makes this really easy.

Repo City

A lot of folks went and embraced GitHub as an easy way to release up to date scripts to the masses, with the ability for them to open issues for new features, bugs, and Q&A.

• sp_WhoIsActive: Get tons of detailed information about queries currently executing
• First Responder Kit: Basically anything you need to do a health and performance check of your servers
• Ola Hallengren’s Maintenance Solution: Backups, CheckDB, Index and Stats maintenance, highly configurable
• sp_HumanEvents: Easily set up and analyze Extended Events to troubleshoot common issues like blocking, compilations, query performance, and more
• sp_PressureDetector: Detect memory and CPU pressure on SQL Server really fast
• sp_QuickieStore: Get all the important stuff out of Query Store with the press of a button

With the exception of Ola’s scripts, I contribute code to all of the procedures listed above, and I use them in just about every engagement.

In tomorrow’s post, I’m gonna cover a few other things you should do to get ready for someone to look at your SQL server.

Thanks for reading!

Going Further

If this is the kind of SQL Server stuff you love learning about, you’ll love my training. I’m offering a 75% discount to my blog readers if you click from here. I’m also available for consulting if you just don’t have time for that and need to solve performance problems quickly.