Guy's Best Practice & Litmus Tests Ezine #19
- SQL
If you remember, my ezine started out by asking simple questions that you
could try on your server. The answers are designed to separate the sheep from
the goats, the amateurs from professionals. I call these simple questions Guy's
Litmus Tests.
Contents for Ezine #19
When I first see a customer's server it is hard to know how to pitch the
advice, that's why I develop Guy's Litmus tests. I was looking at an SQL server
recently; my expertise is managing the server rather than designing the
databases. Here are some of the questions I asked:
1) Service Account
Which account is used to start the MSSQLServer service?
Amateurs use the Administrator
Professionals create a special account.
Well the site that I was visiting had configured the Administrator account to
start the SQL service. I dropped into conversation, 'Do you get any problems
with the SQL service when you change the administrator's password?' 'Nah' he
said 'We never change the administrator's password'. O.K. I thought, keep it
simple here, this must be a low security company. When I checked the SQL Agent,
I just knew that it would not be started. Well, the Agent could not start
because no account had been assigned for logon.
2) SQL Agent
How is the SQL Agent configured?
Amateurs - not working
Professional's assigned a special logon account that never expires and never
has to change its password.
I love SQL Agent. I particularly enjoy configuring Alerts
and Jobs to automate backup and other routine tasks. SQL Agent falls into the
category of task where investing half an hour up front that pays back handsomely
when you are under stress, or want do something more interesting than manual
backups.
See more about SQL Here
Calculating IP Address
ranges is a black art, which many network managers solve by creating custom
Excel spreadsheets. IPAT cracks this problem of allocating IP addresses
in networks in two ways:
For Mr Organized there is a nifty subnet
calculator, you enter the network address and the subnet mask, then IPAT
works out the usable addresses and their ranges.
For Mr Lazy IPAT
discovers and then displays the IP addresses of existing computers.
Download the Free IP Address Tracker
Your first step with DHCP in Windows 2000 and Server 2003, is to Authorize
it; to let Active Directory know of DHCP's existence. Microsoft say this
is stop rogue administrators setting up too many DHCP servers. Anyway,
make sure you Authorize DHCP before you deploy clients like XP.
As ever, a single point of failure is your enemy, so have two DHCP servers
for each subnet. Each server offers the client an IP addresses, from its
DHCP scopes. My tip is to split these scopes 80 / 20 rather than 50:50.
Use 80% of the range for the 'local' DHCP server and 20 for the 'distant' or
spare DHCP server.
DHCP Litmus Tests1) Scope Options
Professionals say 'We use 3 or 4 of the scope options, for example, Type 003
- Router, Type 006 - DNS, Type 015 - Domain name'.
Amateurs say 'What is a scope option?'
2) Audit Logging.
Amateurs say 'We don't like DHCP because you cannot tell which user has
which IP address.
Professionals say: We implement Logging, so we have records of which
IP address was assigned to which IP address. So if the boss asks who had
10.10.7.87 on April 2nd we can tell him' To keep records, all you
need to do is right-click the server, properties and then check the 'Enable DHCP
Audit Logging' box.
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