Tasks on First day as a Fresh DBA

[patelbkusa]

Hi Can some one please briefly tell me what steps (each steps) a DBA should take on a new job to perform as a general database administrator?

[patelbkusa]

Friends, I have my first day on job in the morning. Need help pleaseeeeeeeee..................

[marist89]

First, you need a little patience. Next, you need to plan a little better and ask these questions so somebody has enough time to give you a decent answer.

I'm sure the people that interviewed you know about what your skills are. You most likely will spend the first day filling out forms and reading. Be honest with your supervisors and I'm sure they'll challenge you.

[craigdba]

Is this a new job as a DBA ? Suely you knew enough to get through the interview.

[dbasan]

Boring!!!

The day moves very slow.

[Mr.Hanky]

You should randomly assault one developer with a rusty pipe wrench for no apparent reason, when asked why just say he/she had bad timing.

This will make them all fear and respect you in the future and your job from here on out will be much more enjoyable.

Set the tone NOW!!
He who hesitates is lost.

[jhmartin]

Find out what the backup strategy is and verify that the backups are working. Restore them to a seperate system to make REALLY sure.

Find out how you'll know if the DB backup scripts die.

Find out what is monitoring the database -- how will you know if it fails? What if the server itself fails -- who gets called?

Make sure the layout of the DB isn't suicidal -- such as backups being stored on the same disk (NAS) or machine as the database.

Do a security audit and find out what all the accounts do if it is not obvious. The exercise of tracking this information down will help integrate you into the environment and perhaps find some accounts that don't need to be there.

Check on the growth rate of the database -- make sure it isn't going to run out of disk space in the next few weeks, otherwise start getting more disk space immediately.

You never know what your predecessor has left for you, so taking care of these will at least give you some confidence that the system isn't going to fall over on you your first day.