4 Ways to Better Manage SQL Server Without a DBA
Microsoft SQL Server is popular. Statistics vary as to just how popular, but most agree that it is one of the most popular database platforms in the world. And for good reason. It’s feature rich, very reliable, highly scalable, and can be made extremely secure. All good things.
According to a 2022 survey conducted by Enlyft, of all the companies using Microsoft SQL Server, 39% are small businesses with less than 50 employees and 72% have revenue of less than $50M annually.
For many of those companies, justifying a full-time Database Administrator is hard.
It can be hard even for larger companies. Companies with more than $1B in annual sales or with tens of thousands of employees can have a hard time spending money on a full-time DBA. Why? If they have fewer than a couple of dozen SQL Servers, a full-time DBA is probably not warranted. It’ll be hard to keep a good DBA busy. And if you hire one DBA, you’ll probably want to hire a second, doubling your costs for salary, HR, benefits, etc.
So, if you find yourself in this situation, working without a DBA, what can you do?
Managing SQL Server without a DBA
If you are a CIO who is responsible for managing SQL Server with a DBA in your organization, you have some options. Here are four.
- Use a SQL Server management tool
- Train your IT staff on SQL Server administration
- Use a cloud-based SQL Server hosting service
- Partner with a SQL Server consulting company
Let’s look at each of these.
1. Use a SQL Server management tool
One of the first places many companies turn when attempting to working without a DBA is to buy tools. There are a lot of great tools out there for monitoring SQL Server. Some are specific to SQL Server, such as Solarwinds’ SQLSentry and Redgate’s SQL Monitor. Others are part of broader networking monitoring tools, such as PRTG and DynaTrace.
These tools can help you to monitor your SQL Server environment, troubleshoot problems, and highlight resource contention. But the onus is on you and your team to interpret the information and to do something about it. It’s like the gauges in a car. They can tell you when something isn’t right. But it’s up to you to act. As the saying goes “knowing but not acting is the same as not knowing.”
If you decide to go this route, train your team on the use of the software. Make sure they know how to set it up, tune the alerts, and identify when something isn’t going as planned. Too often, great monitoring tools become shelf-ware because the team doesn’t know how to use it. They install it, it lights up like a Christmas tree, and they eventually uninstall it.
If you opt for this approach, you’ll also want to have an escalation plan for when something goes wrong. No one wants to rely on a team’s Googling skills while the rest of the company is idled because the key SQL Server is out of commission.
2. Train your IT staff on SQL Server administration
Microsoft has spent a fortune making SQL Server a robust, enterprise-capable database platform. SQL Server is good. It’s scalable, it’s resilient, and it’s reliable.
However, you still have to configure it appropriately for your workload. You still have to perform backups, schedule maintenance jobs, apply patches, and yes, troubleshoot performance and other issues.
If you do not have a DBA, it is important to train your IT staff on the basics of SQL Server administration. Pluralsight has a lot of good training sessions for DBAs. In fact, we provide a Pluralsight subscription for each of our DBAs to help them keep their skills current.
Your team may not need to know some of the more advanced topics like understanding the differences in Availability Groups (AGs) and Failover Cluster Instances (FCIs) – unless of course you need high availability. Still, a sound understanding of how SQL Server works, and how you can keep it healthy, reliable, and secure is good.
3. Use a cloud-based SQL Server hosting service
Another approach that some companies are looking into is getting out of the SQL Server management game altogether.
Microsoft Azure SQL Databases and Azure SQL Managed Instances can help to offload some of the traditional DBA tasks to Microsoft Azure. AWS has similar offerings.
Of course, the convenience comes with a price tab and some limitations. For example, with a SQL Server VM, you have access to everything – the operating system, the SQL Server configuration, the drive configurations, etc. With a Managed Instance, Microsoft takes care of the operating system for you. Which is good, but it also means you don’t have access to make changes there if needed. The same is true with Azure SQL Databases. You only have access to the database, not the SQL Server instance and certainly not the operating system.
Is it a good option for you? It may be.
Here’s what we’re seeing. Some companies are leveraging Azure SQL Database for new development. But, we’re not seeing a lot of migration of existing database applications to Azure SQL Databases. It’s easier to design and build for that environment from the beginning than it is to retrofit an application.
Azure Managed Instances can also be good under certain circumstances, but the use-case is pretty narrow at this point.
4. Partner with a SQL Server consulting company
A lot of companies recognize that important aspects of their business depends on SQL Server being available, performing well, and of course, being secure. So, they partner with companies like The SERO Group to provide DBA services.
Experienced DBAs work with your teams for items such as:
- Ensure the current configuration supports your RTOs and RPOs
- Develop and test disaster recovery scenarios
- Identify departures from best practices and build remediation plans
- Proactively monitor and respond to alerts
- Prevent potential issues from becoming disruptive events
- Assist with consolidation efforts to reduce the SQL footprint before a true-up
Companies like The SERO Group provide the SQL expertise, the mature DBA processes, and the tools required to manage SQL Server environments – without the compensation package and the Human Resources requirements for finding, onboarding, training, retaining, and eventually replacing a DBA.
Using a combination of these options
Of course, this is not a comprehensive list of options. There may be other options for your organization to better manage SQL Server without a DBA.
We find that many companies opt for a combination of these approaches.
Maybe they want to move some of their workload to AWS or Azure, reduce their overall SQL Server footprint with consolidation, and work with a knowledgeable DBA team that can help accomplish their objectives.
Or maybe they’ve purchased some tools, have trained their team on the basics of SQL Server administration, and would like to have access to an experienced DBA team for some of the more complex activities and troubleshooting.
We’ve worked with companies in these and other capacities.
Additional resources for managing SQL Server
Here are some other resources that may help.
- Who’s Caring for Your SQL Servers?
- SQL Server Maintenance: 10 Things to Keep Your SQL Server Running Well
- Do I Still Need a SQL Server Health Check?
- 10 Unseen Things Successful DBAs Do
Want to work with The SERO Group?
At The SERO Group, we work with companies who just don’t need a full-time DBA on staff. But they need reliable and secure SQL Servers. We do that.
If that’s something you’d like to learn more about, let’s have a conversation to see if we’re a good fit for what you’re looking for.