Designing a Microsoft SQL Server 2005 infrastructure (MOC 2786)

Special note

Elements of this syllabus are subject to change

Course overview

This 2-day instructor-led course provides database administrators working in enterprise environments with the knowledge and skills to design a Microsoft SQL Server 2005 database infrastructure. The course focuses on the development of strategies for data archiving, consolidation, distribution, and recovery. The course also stresses the importance of capacity analysis and emphasizes the trade-offs that need to be made during design.
This is the first course in the database administration curriculum and will serve as the entry point for other courses in the curriculum.

Prerequisites

• Understand the trade-offs among the different redundant storage types. For example, what RAID levels mean, how they differ from a Storage Area Networks (SAN), etc
• Understand how replication works and how replication is implemented
• Be familiar with reading user requirements and business-need documents. For example, development project vision/mission statements or business analysis reports
• Have some knowledge of how queries execute. Must be able to read a query execution plan and understand what is happening
• Have basic knowledge of the dependencies between system components
• Be able to design a database to third normal form (3NF) and know the trade-offs when backing out of the fully normalized design (denormalization) and designing for performance and business requirements in addition to being familiar with design models, such as Star and Snowflake schemas
  
• Have monitoring and troubleshooting skills
  
• Have knowledge of the operating system and platform. That is, how the operating system integrates with the database, what the platform or operating system can do, and how the interaction between the operating system and the database works. For example, how integrated authentication interacts with Active Directory directory service
  
• Have knowledge of application architecture. That is, how applications can be designed in three layers, what applications can do, interaction between application and the database, interaction between database and the platform or operating system
• Must already know how to use:
  
  • A data modeling tool
    
  • Microsoft Visio (to create infrastructure diagrams)
    
• Be familiar with SQL Server 2005 features, tools, and technologies
• Have a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist: Microsoft SQL Server 2005 credential or equivalent experience

Audience

• This course is intended for current professional database administrators who have three or more years of on-the-job experience administering SQL Server database solutions in an enterprise environment

Next steps

• No Microsoft Certified Professional exams are associated with this course currently
  

Benefits to you

• Analyze storage, CPU, memory, and network capacity needs
  
• Design a strategy for data archiving
  
• Design a strategy for database server consolidation
  
• Design a strategy for data distribution
  
• Design a database server infrastructure
  
• Design a strategy for data recovery
  
• Establish database conventions and standards

Course outline

Module 1: Analyzing Capacity Needs

• This module explains how to gather data about the current capacity of key system resources such as storage, CPU, memory, and network bandwidth. It also explains how the resulting data can be used to estimate future capacity needs

Module 2: Designing a Strategy for Data Archiving

• This module explains how to identify the requirements that affect data archiving, determine the structure of archival data, select an appropriate storage format, and develop a data movement strategy. It also describes the key elements of a data archival plan and the process of creating it

Module 3: Designing a Strategy for Database Server Consolidation

• This module describes the benefits of consolidating database servers in various ways and explains how to use multiple SQL Server instances to optimize the design of a database server infrastructure. It also details the process of designing a database server consolidation plan

Module 4: Designing a Strategy for Data Distribution

• This module describes the various tools that are provided by SQL Server 2005 for data distribution and explains how to select an appropriate tool based on the requirements of an organization. It also details the process of creating a data distribution plan specifically for replication

Module 5: Designing a Database Server Infrastructure

• This module explains how to evaluate the current database server infrastructure of an organization and gather requirements for modifying it. It also provides guidelines and best practices for designing modifications to the current infrastructure and describes the hardware and software trade-offs involved in the design process

Module 6: Designing a Strategy for Data Recovery

• This module explains how to create a backup and recovery strategy. It also describes the key components of a database disaster recovery plan and the process of creating it

Module 7: Establishing Database Conventions and Standards

• This module describes how well a database naming convention simplifies administration and provides guidelines for establishing such a convention. It also explains how to define Transact-SQL (T-SQL) coding, database access, and deployment process standards