According to the video, photos has become much more popular than expects. To give you some idea of how popular, take a look at these statistics.

• 2,000 photo uploads per second
• 40,000,000 uploads per day
• 1,000,000,000 uploads per month (a billion!)

Now that’s a lot of data. Since they store multiple sizes of the original images, they have about 40 billion, yes billion images stored as of the video shoot.

These images are stored in a vast raised floor data center that looks to be cram packed with racks of 1U servers and storage units. For those network/data center folks….look at the cable management. We should all strive for that level of cleanliness.

The user to developer ratio is something along the lines of 1,000,000 : 1. Haha. Now that’s a user base.

Neat stuff. Have a great weekend.

Blessings to you and yours.

In SQL 2008, Maintenance Plans create a workflow of tasks to ensure your database is optimized and backed up on a regular schedule. The Maintenance Plan will create an SSIS package that will be scheduled and run with SQL Agent. Attend this session and learn how Maintenance Plans will ease your administrative overhead.

Common Tasks

• Database backups
• Database Integrity checks
• Index Maintenance
• Automated Cleanup

Creating New Plans

• Maintenance Plan Wizard
• Maintenance Plan Design
• Must be member of sysadmin fixed server role

Important Tasks to Deal With

• Backup Database
• Reorganize Index (fragmentation level < 30%, Reorg)
• Rebuild Index (fragmentation level > 30%, Rebuild)
• Update Statistics
• Check Database Integrity (DBCC CHECKDB)
  • Also validates indexes in SQL Server 2008
• History Cleanup
  • Cleans information inside information Sys DB’s
• Maintenance Cleanup (MSDB)
  • Cleans up after maintenance plans themselves
  • Or Backup files, logs, etc…

“Failure to plan for a disaster is inexcusable.” – Thomas LaRock

Schedules will depend upon your organizational needs.

Recommended Practices

• Create separate plans for system versus user databases
  • Yes, System DB’s need to be backed up and able to be restored!
• Tasks should be run at non-peak hours (Duh!) 
  • Be sure to check for other running tasks, like reporting or ETL loads.
• Do not automate the Shrink Database task
  • Really? Do use it period according to Thomas!
• Perform database backups prior to other maintenance tasks
  • Back them up before you start touching anything even in a maintenance plan.
  • Always have a “comfortable” restore point.

MultiServer Management

• Configure a SQL Server Agent to be a “Master”
• Specify Target
• Define new Multi-Server jobs or
• Convert existing Local Job to multi-server.
  • Right click
  • See Target tab. Use it.

FYI, the job only shows on the Master. It does not show in the target server job list.

“Since it’s a demo, we need everything to work.” – Thomas LaRock – Great quote. Too bad it didn’t work.

Additional Resources

• http://sqlserverpedia.com/wiki/Main_Page
• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms187658.aspx

DMV – Dynamic Management Views (and functions)

• Returns server state information that can be used to monitor the health of a server instance, diagnose problems, and tune performance.* MSFT – 2008 BOL

DMV Categories (Not all are going to be in this session)

• Change Data Capture
• Query Notifications
• Common Language Runtime
• Replication
• Database Mirroring
• Resource Governor
• Database Related
• Service Broker
• Execution
• SQL Server Extended Events
• Full-Text Search
• SQL Server Operating System
• Index
• Transaction
• I/O
• Security
• Object

DMV’s help with the ever growing infrastructure and complexities. Allow you to monitor and manage your environment.

Key DMV’s

• Sys.dm_os_sys_info
  • General Server Info
• Sys.dm_exec_requests
  • Sp_who(2)
• Sys.dm_db_index_operational_stats
  • Sp_lock
• Sys.dm_db_index_usage_stats
  • Base DMV for Index Analysis and Recommendations
• Msdb.dbo.backupset
  • Base table for backup history
• Sys.dm_exec_cached_plans
  • Shows query plans that are cached by SQL Server
  • For query plans, this DMV maps to the syscacheobjects table in SQL Server 2000
• Sys.dm_exec_query_stats
  • Performance statistics for cached query plans
  • Top 10
• Sys.dm_io_virtual_file_stats
  • I/O stats for data and log files
• Sys.dm_os_memory_pools
  • Monitors Cache memory
• Sys.dm_exec_sql_text
  • Returns the text of the SQL batch that is identified by the specified sql_handle.
  • This table-valued function replaces the system function fn_get_sql
  • Obtained from:
    • Sys.dm_exec_query_stats
    • Sys.dm_exec_requests
    • Sys.dm_exec_cursors
    • Sys.dm_exec_xml_handles
    • Sys.dm_exec_query_memory_grants
    • Sys.dm_exec_connections

“Use it early, use it often” – Jeremy 

Love it that every technical person presenting a demo has hit at least one minor glitch. Let’s me know it’s not just me. Ha!

Resources

• http://www.sswug.org
• Local User Group
• Books On Line
  • SQL Server 2008 Performance Studio
    • https://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?culture=en-US&EventID=1032349947&CountryCode=US
    • http://www.microsoft.com/midsizebusiness/business-goals/business-operations/

According to the post “DrupalCon DC By the Numbers: Community, Profit, and Sustainability | DrupalCon DC.”, the event made the Drupal Association $185,780.69 after all was said and done.

A total of 1,422 people attended the Drupalcon DC event in many of 109 sessions and apparently over 100 BOF (birds of a feather) gatherings. I must say, this is impressive.

One thing I really liked hearing about was the association is looking what the focus of future DrupalCons will be. Personally, I see a good business case to slowly start working in some non-developer focused tracks. While DrupalCon is a developer event, more “users” of Drupal are non-developers, or folks that maybe cross certain lines between developer and non-developer.

Perhaps it is time to look at a business track showing the business users how things can get done with Drupal to solve business needs. We’ll be listening to see where the association goes with their thoughts on the subject. Of course, if you are likewise inclined, let the association know. Remember, “silence is acceptance”.

Of course, who can not forget the myriad of sponsors, volunteers and gracious hearts that continue to make DrupalCon what is has become. This is still the heart of Drupal. Don’t lose it! 

Blessings