Optimizing Database Health for Businesses

What is database health? 

Database health is a measure of how smoothly your database is running. Database health is not the same as database performance, however, performance does play a key role in a healthy, functioning system.

Database health can be checked inside the following: 

• Database and operating system configuration  
• Query performance  
• Data safety  
• Index efficiency  
• Data maintenance  
• Security
• Migrations
• Upgrades 
• Availability

What does database health look like 

It would take ages to explain how not to treat and maintain your databases for optimal health. Best practices change, but generally, a healthy database: 

• Is fully updated (to an appropriate level – scaling beyond your company’s means can be financially detrimental) 
•  Is properly tuned.  
• Regularly runs critical administrative utilities 
• Has normalized or denormalized schemas 
• Contains properly created indexes  
• Has disaster recovery documented and tested 
• Has all systems backed up  
• Has sufficient resources 
• Is run by a competent team with an appropriate skill level  

Unhealthy databases come with a slew of problems: error messages, slow speeds, long-running queries, etc. With these issues you are not just taking valuable time away from your work. You may be costing your company money and potentially even losing or messing up your data. 

Database health monitoring best practices

Trying to heal your database while you’re in trouble mode is a painful process. Check your data health while you and your company are in growth mode, or: 

• When there’s poor data or systems performance 
• When you’re buying new software 
• When you’ve had an outage 
• As a proactive precaution, rather than a reactive response to trouble 
• If applications are slow 

Benefits of regularly checking database health

What you don’t know CAN hurt you. Outdated databases are vulnerable and it’s in your best interest to know what’s causing any performance, stability, security, or data safety issues. If you are not regularly checking your database health, you are at risk of experiencing th following:

• Security issues 
• Money loss 
• Data loss 
• Unwanted downtime  
• Operational slowdown 
• Something not working after an upgrade 
• Poor performance 
• Data analytics that aren’t functioning properly
  

Monitoring database health: SQL Server & Oracle

SQL: 

For full details, head to: Microsoft. 

Starting from the top-view is generally best and then drill into problem area(s),    

Step 1. Overall System Health  

Microsoft provides Event Viewer, a built-in operating system tool, that gives an overall system view, a breakdown of major areas, and then the ability to get into further detail.      

To start Event Viewer, click on your Windows Icon on your taskbar.  Then begin typing Event Viewer. Once the Application Icon appears, click on it.  

From the Event Viewer Navigation Bar, click on Windows Log and then System Logs.  Scroll through the system message history looking for errors in major subsystems such as:  

Errors are classified by informational, warning, etc.  

Step 2. SQL Server Health  

You may observe SQL Server messages in the System Log.   The most serious and high-level messages are here. However you may do an even deeper drill by looking at the SQL Server errorlog.  (These can also be accessed from inside SQL Server Management Studio)    

These error log files are usually found here:  

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\<instance_name>\MSSQL\Log 

Oracle:  

To perform an in-place upgrade: 

Best practices for a healthy database 

What are some ways you can keep your database healthy, either through a CIO, outsourced DBA, or as an in-house team? 

Is database health the same as database performance?

We often see the terms, database health, and database performance used interchangeably. This is a common misunderstanding. Database health includes data points, while database performance adds in time as a metric that is factored in while analyzing health.  

Is database health the same as data quality?

This is another set of commonly phrases that are similar but have slight (but critical) differences. Data quality deals with the type of data that is entered into the database. You can have clean, error-free data inputs in malfunctioning database systems. In that scenario you would have high data quality and poor database health. Alternatively, you could load messy, erroneous, “bad data” into a quality, healthy database. Data quality and database health are mutually exclusive. Fortunately, a healthy database is more likely to have a strong “immune system” that will catch and flags errors and can help to filter through poor quality data.  

What Solvaria can do if your database isn’t healthy? 

From comprehensive assessments to 24x7 support, we’ve got you covered. 

We begin by conducting a customized full-scale audit on your database instances based on the manufacturer’s best practices.  Our team leverages a non-intrusive approach to determine the current health of your database environment, we can perform the assessment with no downtime or impact on the end user. 

Our comprehensive report provides a detailed analysis of the configuration, health, and performance of your database servers to establish a baseline for addressing any potential performance issues. This report also provides a prioritized remediation tasks list to bring your databases server into the latest patch (or version) and best practices. 

Businesses benefit immensely from maintaining healthy databases. Don't believe us? Hear from our clients: Eliminating the Single Point of Failure for a Software Company.

Looking for more help? Reach out to our expert team.