Planning maintenance

Monitoring systems are not a substitute for good planning. They alert you to unplanned situations that need attention. The more unplanned things you respond to, the greater the chance that you will need to respond to multiple emergencies at once. And when that happens, something will break. Ultimately, that is your fault. If you wish to take your responsibilities seriously, you should plan for this.

How to do it…

This recipe is all about planning, so we'll provide discussion points rather than portions of code. We'll cover the main points that should be addressed and provide a list of points as food for thought, around which the actual implementation should be built:

• Let's break a rule: If you don't have a backup, take one now. I mean now – go on, off you go! Then, let's talk some more about planning maintenance. If you already have, well done! It's hard to keep your job as a DBA if you lose data...