I am afraid that I have been indirectly responsible for at least one person crashing (Or rendering useless, much like most division of motor vehicle agents I have encountered) their SMS production database and I do feel bad for them however I cannot take full blame for the incident. I will not go into detail here by just suffice to say that if some people would take the time to read documentation like they read the back covers of play station games at Wal-Mart problems or job reprimand situations can be avoided.
I am not a teacher by any stretch of the word or imagination however I do try and show or explain to people how things work or things that I have learned so that by my mistakes they may learn and avoid the pitfalls that have at times befallen me.
Over the years I have told people to test, test, test, and test again when you are planning on making a change to your production database(s). I have posted articles over the years that detail how you can create a database to play with or develop your scripts and procedures on or destroy and not feel any great loss.
Creating an SMS test database for educational purposes
Posted On: 5/29/2002
http://www.myitforum.com/articles/18/view.asp?id=3016
Copying an SMS database from one server to another
Posted On: 3/18/2002
http://www.myitforum.com/articles/14/view.asp?id=2372
I have also told people to backup their databases using native tools for SQL server or the operating system so that if and when your SMS or MOM database develops an anomaly that cannot be recovered from the database can be restored or placed back into its last functional state.
Backing up your SMS SQL database to a network drive
Posted On: 8/19/2003
http://www.myitforum.com/articles/18/view.asp?id=5915
When disaster strikes
Posted On: 7/17/2003
http://www.myitforum.com/articles/18/view.asp?id=5656
I cannot express more the need to test (On a non production database in a test lab or on the same server if need be) and backup your database to protect your time consuming investment. SMS 2003 is not much different than SMS 2.0 when it comes to backing up your database but it is worth reading the new Microsoft documentation for SMS 2003 for which I have provided the links below.
Scenarios and Procedures for SMS 2003: Maintenance, Backup, and Recovery
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=d2562e2b-640b-4ab7-ab5a-37995acf2458&Displaylang=en
SMS Technical FAQ: Backup and Recovery
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sms/sms2003/techfaq/tfaq11.mspx
Remember testing and backing up is (not) hard to do and should be done both before and after you make considerable changes to your database so that you can rest assured that your infrastructure will continue to perform as expected.
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