A Different Kind of MSSQL Question...

Hey all!
This may sound like a weird one but i couldn't think of a better audience to ask!

If you are a SQL Server DBA (or were, or aspire to be, or play one on T.V., etc.) and the CIO of your 2.something billion $ a year company has offered you an 1 hour forum to sit down and ask him anything you want with the pretense of getting a straight answer, what would you ask?

I know this offers an excellent opportunity to cut up a bit...and do so if you must (keeping us entertained around here is important too!)...but i'm looking for work related, SQL related, direction, strategy, etc, etc type stuff.
Not: 'Whats it like to drive a $250k 'benz to work everyday?' OR 'Can i have .5% of your $2,000,000 bonus this year?'

While i genuinely have those questions in my mind...i'm not looking to waste his $5,000 an hour ass's time - and I only have 1 hour to chew his ear off.

What do ya'll think?...not knowing the type of business you're involved w/ ...I guess I would take the slant of trying to find out how secure the IT division is within the company...job security these days is fleeting, I've been fortunate only 3 co.'s ni 25 years...

...on the lighter side...I'd want to know what he's investing in!!!|||Depends on what you want. A raise, promotion, job security, new career, to marry his daughter, to make an impression, or to be forgotten. What is the industry? Is he technical? Find how how to educate him about your field and it's importance. Ask him what his vision for the company is and where it will be in 5 or 15 years. How long does he plan on being at the helm? What would he do differently if he had to build the company again (assuming he did build it). Ask him who is competitors are and what about them he fears. Ask how you and your department can help him and your company be more competitive. Find out what his interests and hobbies are, what his family is like, where he grew up, make small talk about his home town or college. Ask him what the most difficult part of running a 2 billion$ company is. What is the most enjoyable part? Ask him why he does it - gets up every day and comes to work instead of retiring. Ask to take him to lunch. Do you want to run a 2 billion$ company some day?|||The CIO? As in not the CEO? I would probably want to see what the overall strategy for the department is What are the big projects coming down the line that always seem to take the line support folks by surprise.

Planning on consolidating all of the SQL Servers in the company onto one big Unisys machine?
Declaring parts of the SQL Server landscape to be High Availability?
Designing a Disaster Recovery (or is that Business Continuity, now?) site? Maybe develop plans for one?
What is the strategy for growing the department, or hiring strategy? Just hire College grads who may be eager, but are not very experienced, or hire veterans? One way, you are in an endless training loop. The other way may limit your career growth opportunities, if too many people get hired above you.
Then of course, what are the training options? Will people get transferred to other teams regularly? Get trained regularly?
Which brings us to strategies for new technologies. Wait for stuff to get de-supported before upgrading, or use all beta software?

There are a lot of questions to choose from, but I think the most important one would be: "Do you read DBForums?"|||"Do you read DBForums?"
HAH! If so...i hope he at least appreciates my interest in getting something out of this opportunity! (Though i'd wonder who was steering the ship if he's knocking off around here!)

Depends on what you want.
Looking for some glimpse into the motivations behind the man and/or the title. I believe in order to come to some understanding about someone you must first understand what moves him (beyond the basic electomagnetism technically moving everthing).

How long does he plan on being at the helm?
oooo...good one.

type of business you're involved w/
Where else can you generate a 2+ billion $ a year revenue stream these days...drug dealing, of course...uh...i mean Healthcare.


Thanks all!

Cheers,
Oddsql

95 gig Transaction log!

Hi all, I am a lowly help desk operator who has been thrown into the position of maintaining our SQL server until a new DBA is hired.

The problem is the transaction log has grown to 95GB. I truncated the log file and it shows 95 GB allocated, 588MB in use. I have researched and found that I need to use the DBCC SHRINKFILE command to free up the space, however, I have no clue how to use this command. I can't seem to find any documents on the syntax to use this with osql from the command line.

We are running out of space on the drive and everyone is looking at me to do something about it. Any help would be immensely appreciated.Hi all, I am a lowly help desk operator who has been thrown into the position of maintaining our SQL server until a new DBA is hired.

The problem is the transaction log has grown to 95GB. I truncated the log file and it shows 95 GB allocated, 588MB in use. I have researched and found that I need to use the DBCC SHRINKFILE command to free up the space, however, I have no clue how to use this command. I can't seem to find any documents on the syntax to use this with osql from the command line.

We are running out of space on the drive and everyone is looking at me to do something about it. Any help would be immensely appreciated.

See this ...http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=653804&SiteID=1 (http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=653804&SiteID=1)|||This still doesn't help me much. What I am looking for in instructions on HOW to run the commands to shrink the log file. Do I run it from command line? and if so do I just type in "DBCC SHRINKFILE filename" ?|||First make sure there are no open transactions:

select * from master.dbo.sysprocesses where open_tran > 0

then run:
dbcc sqlperf(logspace)

Use the name retreived above and run dbcc shrinkfile
dbcc shrinkfile([database_Log])

exec sp_spaceused

if the size does not go down, you can always dump the transaction log
dump tran [databasename] with no_log

Please do research before executing the last line of code to fully understand what you are about to do.

Good luck,
Hope this helped|||You should run it in query analyzer, assuming you are using sql server 2000|||I don't have much to add beyond what Reghardt has already said, but I will mention that properly scheduled backups of your transaction log should handle keeping your filesize down quite nicely.

My guess is that there is no transaction log backup scheduled, or they are scheduled, but have been failing for a while now & havn't been monitored.

Here is a great guide that should help you with this.
http://searchsqlserver.techtarget.com/generic/0,295582,sid87_gci1166473,00.html

Shrinking your log-file will solve your problem now, but it will just happen all over again down the road if you don't set up proper backups.

In addition, it is a very good idea to put a threshold on all of your transaction logs. That way, if a transaction log starts growing too big, it will only affect the database it is assigned to, instead of filling up your entire server.|||This worked perfectly, I was able to get it down to 4.6 gigs. Appreciate all the help.

70-444... Case studies, or...?

Took and passed the 70-443 yesterday morning, now just need the 70-444 to complete the MCITP: DBA cert... Was wondering if anybody out there knew if the 70-444 exam used the case study format or ...? Couldn't find that info on http://www.microsoft.com/learning/exams/70-444.mspx.

Thanks.

Justin

Never mind. Took (and passed) the test yesterday morning. I'll consider the lack of replies to my original message a sign that this was something that's not supposed to be discussed, so I suppose I shouldn't mention anything about the format myself.

Good luck to anybody else taking it.

Justin, now with MCITP goodness.

|||

Congrats!

So tell me, what format was the test?

Did it have multiple choice & simulation?

Was it case studies like the 70-443?

Thanks!