Operational health
Monitor services, jobs, storage, waits, blocking, replication, and configuration drift before small issues become incidents.
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Operate databases with discipline
Administration
Database administration keeps production systems available, recoverable, secure, and understandable. Daily checks matter, but mature operations also automate evidence collection, define ownership, document exceptions, and rehearse the work that becomes urgent during an incident.
Core focus
What this practice covers
Backup and recovery
Manage full recovery chains, verify backup media, test restores, and align retention with recovery objectives.
Maintenance and capacity
Control statistics, indexes, integrity checks, file growth, patching, and capacity forecasts through documented routines.
Typical work
What teams work on
- Daily and weekly SQL Server or PostgreSQL health checks
- Backup scheduling, verification, restore testing, and retention
- SQL Agent, cron, and automation job review
- Storage, TempDB, WAL, and transaction log management
- Patching, upgrades, and configuration baselines
- Runbooks, escalation paths, and production change review
Results
What good looks like
- Fewer surprise incidents
- Backups tied to proven restore procedures
- Visible capacity and maintenance risks
- A repeatable operating model that another DBA can follow