Confirming the security of your SQL Servers

Reading the daily news can be a frightening experience for DBAs as well as executives that rely on mission critical data stored in SQL Servers. Hardly a week goes by without another incident exposing the need to confirm - regularly - your data is actually well protected and secure from threats. While your plan is good and your people outstanding, unanticipated changes can lead to your data not being secure - without your knowledge.

Wondering and worrying won't make your data any more secure. The only logical approach is to confirm your data is secure - regularly and quickly. Then, focus on the productivity tasks that will help your company survive the troublesome economic times - and get some well deserved sleep. This whitepaper will help you implement a framework for confirming your security is what you expect - with minimal effort.

Confirming the recoverability of your SQL Servers

Backups are not enough! Please understand this point - it is a very costly lesson to learn after a disaster strikes. The vast majority of backups in the IT industry cannot be used for their intended purpose. A variety of reasons cause this situation. The only way to be sure your database backups can be used for recovery is to test them - regularly.

Building a SQL Server Development Environment

Do you have a suitable development environment for building SQL Server solutions? Does it provide a productive environment that approximates your Testing and Production environments? This whitepaper will assist you with identifying the appropriate development environment for your situation and provide a strategy for making it a reality.

Topics covered include:

• confirming critical applications and file versions are identical between environments
• ensuring appropriate source code protection throughout the development cycle(s)
• ensuring similar access controls between environments
• determining compliance with existing development standards

Implement Monitoring of your SQL Servers using Native Tools

Proactively monitoring your SQL Server is an vital task which takes time and jumping through hoops at times. The native tools included with Microsoft SQL Server (and the Windows Server operating system) provide the information you need to know how well your database server is performing. But the tools are not the type of resources that can be used without spending sufficient time understanding how they work as well as what the data they return is telling you.

This whitepaper will guide you through implementing a functional monitoring solution that allows you to quickly determine the performance level of your SQL Server - without using 3rd party tools. Realize, however, this approach trades time for money.