Dba Cockpit : An insight into MSSQL Administration with Dba Cockpit

[Former Member]

The blog is about a short overview of various functionalities that are available with Dba Cockpit mainly focussing on SAP Net Weaver systems on MSSQL .Though there are lot of presentations available in various forums , I though it will be a good idea to share my knowledge on the same from various presentations and discussions.

Firstly Dba Cockpit is a powerful transaction and itself has an authorization concept. For more details about the authorization please see SAP Note:1027512

Is my SQL Server setup complete?
Before proceeding as a user we always need to check if the SQL Server is configured correctly. This can be done by hitting the transaction dbacockpit->Configuration->SQL Server Set up Check

            The status messages give an overview with legends marked red, green and blue. The messages are so informative and self-explanatory. Thanks to the SAP developers for developing the screen exclusively for SQL Server. To make the life easier for us SAP has provided a note 1609057 for further explanations.

As always SAP provides another way to check the configuration parameters for SQL Server. Here the colour coding is done but the values are displayed this can be double checked with SAP notes 1237682 (MSSQL 2008 R2) and 879941 (MSSQL 2005)

SQL Server Error Logs
The error and log information are very important from a administration perspective and it needs to monitored correctly. The errors can be accessed through dbacockpit->Diagnostics->SQL Error Logs.  I will discuss some basic SQL Error log fundamentals so that it is easy to understand.

            >Nomenclature is ERRORLOG
            >A new error log is started at every SQL Service restart
            >As a best practice you can always compare the error logs with           ST22,SM21 
            >Severity 20 - Critical Investigated immediately
            >Severity 17-19 should be investigated 
            >Severity <16 is normal 

Deadlocks
Deadlocks are normally caused by the application specific coding and little related to the Database. The deadlocks can be traced by dbacockpit->Diagnostics->Deadlocks. From a technical perspective the most important information to look for in case of deadlocks is that of ABAP programme name and the table name.

Missing Tables and Indexes
There are two possibilities in this case
>Tables are present in SAP system and not in database
>Tables are present in Database and not present in Data Dictionary.

For both the scenarios dbacockpit->Diagnostics->Missing Tables and Indexes. Transaction se16 and se14 are used to create the tables and the indexes respectively.

Job Scheduling: Dbacockpit an easy way
The jobs can be scheduled and monitored from dbacockpit->Jobs transaction. The custom defined database consistency check can be easily scheduled and the status can be monitored.

 Space Management
dbacockpit->Space transaction gives an easy way to analyse statistical details of dB size. The most common use are to fond the 
            >Largest Table
            >Fastest Growing Table

The dbacockpit provides a All In One tool for db activities especially SQL Server. Please post your comments and questions regarding the blog. Hope the blog provides an insight to dbacockpit. Have a nice time with dbacockpit.