29Aug 2022 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

AWS RDS Restore To A Point In Time

AWS, PostgreSQL, RDS
The single most important part of backups are not backups. The single most important part of backups are restores. It doesn't matter a lick if you have 100, flawless backups of your database if you can't restore one of them. So, let's get started and talk about how perform an RDS restore. RDS Restore I'm going to use the portal because I like how GUIs allow me to easily illustrate what I'm doing. However, I'll probably do another post soon on how to use the command line to do this. That is the better approach in most cases. If you connect up to a database within RDS, you get a menu, Actions: Right there, near the bottom is what we're looking for, Restore to point in time. Clicking on this…
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22Aug 2022 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

AWS RDS Backups

AWS, PostgreSQL, RDS
One of the things I love the most about Platform as a Service when it comes to data is the fact that you get RDS backups, built in. Go to the forums. Evidently, backups are one, or more, of the following:a) insanely difficult, so no one does themb) not considered important so no one does themc) not necessary in modern systems because of X technology so no one does them Then, someone deletes a row the business wants back. Someone drops a table. Someone drops a database. Then you find that one, or more, of the following is true:a) no one has ever tried to restore from X technology and you can'tb) come to find out, X technology doesn't really do backupsc) backups are still fundamental to protecting data Enter,…
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29Jun 2020 by Grant Fritchey 3 Comments

SQL Server Backups on AWS RDS

RDS
One of the things I love the most about Platform as a Service offerings is the fact that it makes it so I don't have to do silly things backup SQL Server databases on RDS. However! I'm also a paranoid control freak, aka, a DBA. While I appreciate that AWS has a good backup process and I can test it through recovery of my databases, I still want to do my own backups under some circumstances. Can I backup SQL Server databases on RDS? No and yes. Let's talk about it. Backup SQL Server Databases on RDS I have an RDS SQL Server instance running right now on AWS. I can connect up to it and run the following command: BACKUP DATABASE HamShackRadio; Which results in the following: Msg 262,…
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08Jun 2020 by Grant Fritchey 3 Comments

AWS RDS and SQL Server Deadlocks

AWS, RDS
What's the story with AWS RDS and SQL Server deadlocks? I'm approaching AWS RDS like I was taking on a new role at a new organization. Do we have backups in place? Yes, great. Can I test them? Yes. Do they meet our RTO & RPO? Yes. Moving on. What have we got for monitoring? AWS RDS has a good percentage of the fundamentals. Now, it's laid out a little oddly. You have the stuff going through CloudWatch which is largely OS oriented. Then you have enhanced monitoring, which you have to turn on, which covers eight key metrics for SQL Server. Finally, you can enable Performance Insights which gives you metrics on query behaviors (and yeah, any or all of these may be the subject of upcoming blog posts).…
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02Jun 2020 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

Fun Fact: AWS RDS and system_health

AWS, RDS
Did you know that the system_health Extended Event session was running in your RDS instances? Well, it is. HOWEVER. This query, which works perfectly fine on my on premises instance of SQL Server, will fail: SELECT @path = dosdlc.path FROM sys.dm_os_server_diagnostics_log_configurations AS dosdlc; SELECT @path = @path + N'system_health_*'; WITH fxd AS (SELECT CAST(fx.event_data AS XML) AS Event_Data FROM sys.fn_xe_file_target_read_file(@path, NULL, NULL, NULL) AS fx ) SELECT dl.deadlockgraph FROM ( SELECT dl.query('.') AS deadlockgraph FROM fxd CROSS APPLY event_data.nodes('(/event/data/value/deadlock)') AS d(dl) ) AS dl; Whereas, thanks to Aaron Bertrand, this query will work just fine: WITH fxd AS (SELECT CAST(fx.event_data AS XML) AS Event_Data FROM sys.fn_xe_file_target_read_file(N'system_health*.xel', NULL, NULL, NULL) AS fx ) SELECT dl.deadlockgraph FROM ( SELECT dl.query('.') AS deadlockgraph FROM fxd CROSS APPLY event_data.nodes('(/event/data/value/deadlock)') AS d(dl) ) AS dl;…
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01Jun 2020 by Grant Fritchey 4 Comments

Getting Started on AWS RDS

AWS, RDS
I'm expanding my skill set into AWS in a big way. So, one of the things I do when I'm learning a technology is to write blog posts about that tech. So, prepare yourself for a bunch of info on AWS. I'll be working with RDS, which will include SQL Server & PostgreSQL for certain. I'll also be posting quite a bit on AWS DevOps as I get into it. The usual stuff, including SQL Server, query tuning, Extended Events, Azure, Azure DevOps, and all the rest is not going away. I'm just adding another topic. Today, we're getting started on AWS RDS. Creating an RDS Instance The thing is, there's a lot of documentation available on getting started on AWS RDS, directly from Amazon. It's embedded neatly into the…
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27Feb 2020 by Grant Fritchey 8 Comments

Are You Still Worried About Data in the Cloud?

Azure
There really are technology stacks and business use cases that should never be moved off of big iron. Then there's the rest of us. Chances are very high if you're not already starting to move your data storage to the cloud, it's being discussed right now in your business. I helped put together a new report on the current state of databases that are not under your direct control. It's free to download and available over at Dzone. If you haven't made the move yet, or are just getting started on becoming one of the millions of companies that will be hybrid, part cloud-based, part local, then I strongly recommend you check it out. The trends are clear. Smart people are taking advantage of what services like Azure, AWS and…
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24Jun 2013 by Grant Fritchey 4 Comments

I Don’t Care

Azure
It's funny how certain sentences can both accurately reflect a situation and communicate entirely the wrong message. When thinking about cloud-based data management, things come down to a simple, if misleading, statement; I don't care. I don't care about operating systems or servers or disks. I need to have a database and it needs to be available and I need a reasonable assurance of performance. Within those parameters, I just don't care if the OS is patched or not, if the SAN is configured perfectly. I could care less if there are appropriate alerts on the internal network switches. None of that matters to me a whit. I just don't care about any of that because I'm focused on building a database and writing code and getting an app online. The infrastructure just needs to…
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