Performance ● Support ● Availability
Microsoft SQL Server Health Checks
Our Comprehensive SQL Server Health Checks Identify Environment Misconfigurations and Performance Problems before these Impact your Business.
SQL Server Health Checks Identify Mis-configurations and Problem Conditions before they Impact your Business.
Misconfigured SQL servers can have a significant impact on the performance, reliability, availability and recoverability of your business’ core database infrastructure. Given the high cost of SQL Server licensing, it’s always impressed us to find how many businesses fail to properly configure SQL Server to maximise the return on their investment! Our SQL Server health checks also review and advise on issues with your existing patch / build levels, and whether your databases are configured correctly to capitalise on the latest SQL Server feature-set available to you.
Whether your company is growing and your server is struggling to keep up, or you’ve noticed frequent complaints from your staff or customers about slow transactions, DBA Services is here to help.
Our SQL Server Health Check service conducts a detailed review of your SQL Server infrastructure, akin to a Microsoft SQL RAP (although we’d argue ours is even more detailed), which looks at everything from the hardware layer including disks, CPU, memory and network, up through the OS configuration and into SQL Server itself and even into specific problem databases.
For clients who have elected to perform our SQL Health check as part of our Managed SQL Server on-boarding process, we’ll also incorporate remediation activities as part of our health check.
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Review of Storage, Network, CPU and Memory Configurations
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Review of DB Fragmentation and index maintenance
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Review of Aged Statistics and Database Integrity Checks
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Review of DB configuration; Advanced Options, File Sizing etc
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Review of Database Recoverability against RPO & RTO
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SQL Server Processor and Memory Utilisation
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SQL Server Resource Wait Stats Analysis
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Maintenance Plan and Backup Job Review against best practice configurations
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Operating System & SQL Server Configuration Review
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High level SQL Server Security Analysis
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SQL Query Performance Review (specified databases)
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Blocking and Deadlock Detection (specified databases)
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Index and Index Fragmentation Review (specified databases)
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Log Reviews (Windows Event Logs, SQL Server Error Logs and Agent Logs)
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Database Files (MDF, NDF) and Log File Analysis
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Database and Server Capacity Assessment
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Review of SQL Server configurations for OLTP vs OLAP workloads
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Comprehensive documentation of the environment configuration, issues identified and recommendations for remediation
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48-72 hours Performance Baseline Analysis (On request)
What We Look for with Server Health Checks
Environment Misconfigurations
We’ll review your operating system configuration (ie page file, storage, network, build levels), SQL Server instances (parallelism against transaction workloads, memory config etc) and any specific SQL databases (DB configuration, high-value missing indexes, unused non-clustered indexes etc).
Hardware Performance bottlenecks
While many SQL server performance issues can be addressed through proper environment and database configuration, our health checks also conduct a hardware performance baseline to establish whether environmental factors underpinning the SQL Server instance are a contributing factor. We track over 200 OS and SQL counters over a 48-72hrs (representative) sampling period to review such metrics as storage performance, memory utilisation, CPU throughput, network and SQL-specific counters what we’d consider to be acceptable parameters.
Security issues
Our SQL Server database health check-up also provide insights into current security mis-configurations, including identification of potential security risk areas and signs of breaches. Our health checks are geared at preventing costly outages, whether they are caused by a hardware problem, server misconfiguration or incorrect security configurations.
PERFORMANCE BASELINE
We track and analyse over 100 SQL Server and Operating Systems performance counters to identify any potential infrastructure based bottlenecks.
OPERATING SYSTEM
Disks, network, CPU, memory and operating system settings which can impact on how SQL Server interacts with its host environment.
SQL COMPONENTS
Review of multiple instance configurations and environments which host multiple components such as SSRS, SSAS.
SQL INSTANCE CONFIGURATION
Deep dive assessment of SQL Server’s instance components including core SQL build elements to ensure the installation has been comprehensively installed and configured.
CRITICAL DATABASES
Identify high value missing indexes, duplicate or unused indexes which create performance overheads and other DB internal misconfigurations.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Receive a detailed report akin to a Microsoft SQL RAP, containing all findings and recommendations.
Why Clients Work With Us
A while ago we had serious database locking issues while trying to integrate transactions into our ERP system. We investigated, involved our support partner and later even the vendor. After 6 months of no success (and very unhappy users) we involved DBA Services in trying to get to the bottom of the issue. It didn't take them long to pinpoint that a specific index in our database was not performing optimally and recommended to recreate it. After the change, an integration that timed out after 15 minutes completed in less than 10 seconds!
Our environment is extremely complex and years of bad practices have resulted in many issues which we were unable to explain. We are on the road to recovery now and one of the best things we could have done is to outsource our database environment to DBA Services. It has been an absolute pleasure working with professionals like Sia and his team and they have absolutely surpassed all expectations. They definitely come highly recommended.
Arnold Doyle
Sia is super professional and a delight to work with. Highly recommend his services. DBA Services service standards and depth of knowledge is an order of magnitude above other service providers we have worked with in this space.
Piers Cockram
I would regard DBA services as a superior provider of Database services. They demonstrate exceptional professionalism and are truly focused on your business outcome. They are a sensational team.
DBA Services P/L continues to be an excellent service provider with superb problem solving and solution creation talent.
Steve Anable
Excellent enterprise-grade database services. I would not look anywhere else for in-depth SQL consulting, replication, high availability or troubleshooting services. DBA Services assisted with improving the database performance and resilience for a major ERP project of ours. Highly recommended.
David Levi
DBA Services provide AccountAbility with professional, timely and practical advice and service in optimizing the configuration of our web and database servers in Australia and the UK.
Their work is of high quality, but still represents great value for money. They have exceeded our expectations
Terry McMillan
DBA Services was selected to provided GMH Systems Pty Ltd with SQL consulting services. The initial brief was to review and make recommendations on our SQL Server infrastructure and assist in achieving best industry practice in this area.
To date Sia Shamsia our DBA Services consultant has proven to very knowledgeable and professional providing outstanding service and assistance. We have now extended our brief to include security and ongoing maintenance services across all our servers.
We would not hesitate to recommend DBA Services to any company large or small that requires professional services delivered to the highest quality.
Graeme Andrew
DBA Services is professional in their conduct and prompt in their correspondence. Their ongoing support has ensured our database systems are as efficient and reliable as possible.
Samuel Brooks
Contact Us
Ready to benefit from a faster, more responsive SQL Server? Do you have further enquiries about our flexible support plans? Whatever the need, don’t hesitate to contact DBA Services. We’re ready to boost your business’ productivity with proactive, scalable SQL Server database administration and support services. We typically respond within minutes.