55353AC Administering a SQL Database Infrastructure

Public profile

The primary audience for this course is people who administer and maintain SQL Server databases. These individuals perform database administration and maintenance as their primary area of responsibility, or work in environments where databases play a key role in their primary job.

The secondary audiences for this course are people who develop applications that deliver content from SQL Server databases.

Goals

• Authenticate and authorize users
• Assign server and database roles
• Authorize users to access resources
• Protect data with encryption and auditing
• Describe recovery models and backup strategies.
• SQL Server database backup
• Restore SQL Server databases
• Automate database management
• Configure security for SQL Server Agent
• Manage alerts and notifications
• Administer SQL Server using PowerShell
• SQL Server Access Tracking
• Monitor a SQL Server infrastructure
• Troubleshooting a SQL Server infrastructure
  Import and export data

Course outline

Module 1: SQL Server Security

Protecting data within your Microsoft SQL Server databases is essential and requires a working knowledge of SQL Server security features and issues. This module describes SQL Server security models, logins, users, partially contained databases, and cross-server authorization.

lessons

• Authentication of connections to SQL Server
• Authorizing logins to connect to databases
• Authorization between servers
• Partially contained databases

Lab 1: User Authentication

• Create logins
• Create database users
• Fix app login issues
• Configuring security for restored databases

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Basic concepts of SQL Server.
• SQL Server connection authentication.
• Authorization for user login to databases.
• Partially contained databases.
• Authorization between servers.

Module 2: Assigning Server and Database Roles

The use of roles simplifies the management of user permissions. With roles, you can control authenticated user access to system resources based on each user's job role; Instead of assigning permissions on a user-by-user basis, you can grant permissions to a role and then make users members of roles. Microsoft SQL Server includes support for security roles defined at the server level and at the database level.

lessons

• Work with server roles
• Working with fixed database roles
• User Defined Database Role Assignment

Lab 1: Assigning Server and Database Roles

• Assigning server roles
• Fixed database role assignment
• User Defined Database Role Assignment
• security verification

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Describe and use server roles to manage security at the server level.
• Describe and use fixed database roles.
• Use custom database roles and application roles to manage security at the database level.

Module 3: Authorization of users to access resources

In previous modules, you have seen how Microsoft SQL Server security is organized and how permission sets can be assigned at the server and database level through the use of fixed server roles, user-defined server roles, fixed database and application roles. The last step in authorizing users to access SQL Server resources is authorizing users and roles to access server and database objects. In this module, you'll see how these object permissions are managed. In addition to access permissions to database objects, SQL Server provides the ability to determine which users can run code, such as functions and stored procedures. In many cases, these permissions and the permissions on database objects are better configured at the schema level than at the individual object level. Schema-based permission grants can simplify your security architecture. You will explore granting permissions at the schema level in the final lesson of this module.

lessons

• Describe and use server roles to manage security at the server level.
• Describe and use fixed database roles.
• Use custom database roles and application roles to manage security at the database level.

Lab 1: Authorize users to access resources

• Describe and use server roles to manage security at the server level.
• Describe and use fixed database roles.
• Use custom database roles and application roles to manage security at the database level.

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Describe and use server roles to manage security at the server level.
• Describe and use fixed database roles.
• Use custom database roles and application roles to manage security at the database level.

Module 4: Protecting data with encryption and auditing

When configuring security for your Microsoft SQL Server systems, you must ensure that you meet all of your organization's compliance requirements for data protection. Organizations often need to adhere to industry-specific compliance policies, which require auditing of all data access. To address this requirement, SQL Server provides a variety of options for implementing auditing. Another common compliance requirement is data encryption to protect against unauthorized access in case access to database files is compromised. SQL Server supports this requirement by providing Transparent Data Encryption (TDE). To reduce the risk of data leakage by users with administrative access to a database, columns containing sensitive data, such as credit card numbers or national identity numbers, can be encrypted using the Always Encrypt feature. This module describes the options available for auditing in SQL Server, how to use and manage the SQL Server auditing feature, and how to implement encryption.

• Options for auditing data access in SQL Server
• Implementation of SQL Server auditing
• Manage SQL Server auditing
• Data protection with encryption

Lab 1: Using auditing and encryption

• Work with SQL Server auditing
• Encrypt a column as always encrypted
• Encrypt a database using TDE

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Describe options for auditing access to data.
• Implement SQL Server Audit.
• Manage SQL Server auditing.
• Describe and implement data encryption methods in SQL Server.
• implement encryption

Module 5: Recovery Models and Backup Strategies

One of the most important aspects of a database administrator's role is ensuring that your organization's data is backed up reliably so that if a failure occurs, you can recover the data. Despite the fact that the computer industry has known about the need for reliable backup strategies for decades, and has discussed this at length, unfortunate stories related to data loss are still common. Another problem is that even when implemented strategies work as designed, the results still do not meet an organization's operational requirements. In this module, you will consider how to create a strategy that is aligned with the needs of the organization, based on available backup models and the role of transaction logs in maintaining database consistency.

lessons

• Understand backup strategies
• SQL Server transaction logs
• Planning backup strategies

Lab 1 - Understanding SQL Server Recovery Models

• Plan a backup strategy
• Configuring database recovery models

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Describe various backup strategies.
• Describe how database transaction logs work.
• Plan SQL Server backup strategies.

Module 6: SQL Server Database Backup

In the previous module, you learned how to plan a backup strategy for a SQL Server system. Now you can learn how to perform SQL Server backups, including full and differential database backups, transaction log backups, and partial backups. In this module, you will learn how to apply various backup strategies.

lessons

• Backup of databases and transaction logs
• Database backup management
• Advanced database options

Lab 1: Database Backup

• Database Backup
• Backing up databases, differentials, and transaction logs
• Making a partial backup

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Back up SQL Server databases and transaction logs.
• Manage database backups.
• Describe advanced backup options.

Module 7: SQL Server Database Restoration

In the previous module, you learned how to create backup copies of Microsoft SQL Server databases. A backup strategy can involve many different types of backup, so it's essential that you can restore them effectively. You will often restore a database in an urgent situation. However, you must ensure that you have a clear plan of how to proceed and successfully recover the database to the required state. A good plan and understanding of the restoration process can help prevent the situation from getting worse. Some database restores are related to system failures. In these cases, you will want to return the system as close as possible to the state it was in before the failure. However, some failures are related to human error and you may want to recover your system to a point before that error. SQL Server's point-in-time recovery functions can help you achieve this. Because they are typically much larger, user databases are more likely to be affected by system failures than system databases. However, system databases can be affected by failures and special care must be taken when recovering them. In particular, you must understand how to recover every database on your system because you cannot use the same process for all databases on your system. In this module, you will see how to restore system and user databases and how to implement point-in-time recovery. You must understand how to recover every database on your system because you cannot use the same process for all databases on your system. In this module, you will see how to restore system and user databases and how to implement point-in-time recovery. You must understand how to recover every database on your system because you cannot use the same process for all databases on your system. In this module, you will see how to restore system and user databases and how to implement point-in-time recovery.

lessons

• Understand the restore process
• Database restoration
• Advanced restore scenarios
• Recovery from a point in time

Lab 1: Restoring SQL Server Databases

• Restore a database backup
• Restriction of database, differential, and transaction log backups
• Performing a piecemeal restore

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Explain the restoration process.
• Restore databases.
• Perform advanced restore operations.
• Perform a point-in-time recovery.

Module 8: Automating SQL Server Administration

The tools provided by Microsoft SQL Server make administration easier compared to other database engines. However, even when tasks are easy to perform, it is common to have to repeat a task many times. Effective database administrators learn to automate repetitive tasks. This can help avoid situations where an administrator forgets to run a task at the required time. Perhaps most importantly, automating tasks helps ensure that they are performed consistently each time they are run. This module describes how to use SQL Server Agent to automate jobs, how to set up security contexts for jobs, and how to implement multi-server jobs.

lessons

• SQL Server Administration Automation
• Working with SQL Server Agent
• Manage SQL Server Agent jobs
• Multi-server management

Lab 1: Automating SQL Server Administration

• Create a SQL Server Agent job
• try a job
• schedule a job
• Configure master and destination servers

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Describe methods to automate the administration of SQL Server.
• Configure jobs, job step types, and schedules.
• Manage SQL Server Agent jobs.
• Configure master and destination servers.

Module 9: Configuring security for SQL Server Agent

Other modules in this course have demonstrated the need to minimize the permissions granted to users, following the principle of “least privilege”. This means that users only have the permissions they need to perform their tasks. The same logic applies to granting permissions to SQL Server Agent. Although it is easy to run all jobs in the context of the SQL Server Agent service account and configure that account as an administrative account, this would create a poor security environment. It is important to understand how to create a least privilege security environment for jobs running on SQL Server Agent.

lessons

• Understanding SQL Server Agent security
• credential settings
• Configuring proxy accounts

Lab 1: Configuring security for SQL Server Agent

• Analysis of problems in SQL Server Agent
• Configuring a credential
• Configuring a proxy account
• Configuring and testing the security context of a job

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Explain SQL Server Agent security.
• Configure credentials.
• Configure proxy accounts

Module 10: SQL Server Monitoring with Alerts and Notifications

A key aspect of proactively managing Microsoft SQL Server is making sure you are aware of problems and events that occur on the server, as they occur. SQL Server logs a large amount of information about problems. You can set it to automatically notify you when these issues occur, using alerts and notifications. The most common way that SQL Server database administrators receive details of events of interest is via email. This module covers configuring database email, alerts, and notifications for an instance of SQL Server, and configuring alerts for Microsoft Azure SQL Database.

lessons

• SQL Server Error Monitoring
• Database Mail Configuration
• Operators, alerts and notifications
• Alerts in Azure SQL Database

Lab 1: Monitoring SQL Server with Alerts and Notifications

• Database Mail Configuration
• Operator configuration
• Alerts and notifications settings
• Test alerts and notifications

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Monitor SQL Server errors.
• Configure the database mail.
• Configure operators, alerts and notifications.
• Work with alerts in Azure SQL Database.

Module 11 - Introduction to SQL Server administration by using PowerShell

This module discusses how to use Windows PowerShell with Microsoft SQL Server. Businesses have to constantly increase the efficiency and reliability of maintaining their IT infrastructure; With PowerShell, you can improve this efficiency and reliability by creating scripts to perform tasks. PowerShell scripts can be tested and applied multiple times to multiple servers, saving your organization time and money.

lessons

• Getting started with Windows PowerShell
• Configure SQL Server using PowerShell
• Manage and maintain SQL Server with PowerShell
• Administration of Azure SQL databases using PowerShell

Lab 1 - Using PowerShell to administer SQL Server

• Getting started with PowerShell
• Using PowerShell to change SQL Server settings

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Describe the benefits of PowerShell and its fundamental concepts.
• Configure SQL Server mediante PowerShell.
• Manage and maintain SQL Server using PowerShell.
• Manage an Azure SQL database using PowerShell.

Module 12: Track SQL Server Access with Extended Events

Monitoring performance metrics provides a great way to assess the overall performance of a database solution. However, there are times when you need to perform a more detailed analysis of the activity that occurs within an instance of Microsoft SQL Server to troubleshoot and identify ways to optimize workload performance. SQL Server Extended Events is a lightweight and flexible event management system built on the Microsoft SQL Server database engine. This module focuses on the architectural concepts, troubleshooting strategies, and usage scenarios of Extended Events.

lessons

• Basics of Extended Events
• Work with extended events

Lab 1: Extended Events
Using the System_Health extended event session
Track Page Breaks Using Extended Events

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Describe the basics of extended events.
• Create and view extended event sessions.

Module 13: SQL Server Monitoring

The Microsoft SQL Server database engine can run for long periods of time without the need for administrative attention. However, by regularly monitoring activity on the database server, you can fix potential problems before they arise. SQL Server provides a number of tools that you can use to monitor current activity and record details of previous activity. You should become familiar with what each of the tools does and how to use them. It's easy to get overwhelmed by the volume of output that monitoring tools can provide, so you also need to learn techniques for analyzing your output.

lessons

• activity monitoring
• Capture and management of performance data
• Analysis of collected performance data
• SQL server utility

Lab 1: Monitoring SQL Server

• Monitor current activity.
• Capture and manage performance data.
• Analyze the collected performance data.
• Configure the SQL Server utility.

After completing this module, students will be able to:

activity monitoring

• Capture and manage performance data
• Analyze collected performance data
• Use the SQL server utility

Module 14: Troubleshooting SQL Server

Database administrators working with Microsoft SQL Server must take on the important role of troubleshooting when problems arise, especially if users of business-critical applications that depend on SQL Server databases are unable to work. It is important to have a solid general troubleshooting methodology and be familiar with the most common problems that can arise when working with SQL Server systems.

lessons

• A troubleshooting methodology for SQL Server
• Service related troubleshooting
• Troubleshooting connectivity and login issues

Lab 1: Troubleshooting Common Problems

• Troubleshoot and resolve a SQL login issue
• Troubleshoot and resolve a service issue
• Troubleshoot and resolve a Windows logon issue
• Troubleshoot and resolve a job execution issue
• Troubleshoot and resolve a performance issue

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Describe a troubleshooting methodology for SQL Server.
• Resolve service related issues.
• Resolve login and connectivity issues.

Module 15: Import and export of data

While users running application programs directly input a large amount of data that resides on a Microsoft SQL Server system, there is often a need to move data in other locations to and from SQL Server. SQL Server provides a set of tools that you can use to move data in and out. Some of these tools, such as the bcp (Bulk Copy Program) utility and SQL Server Integration Services, are external to the database engine. Other tools, such as the BULK INSERT statement and the OPENROWSET function, are implemented in the database engine. With SQL Server, you can also create data-tier applications that package all the tables, views, and instance objects associated with a user database into a single deployment unit. In this module, you'll explore these tools and techniques so you can import and export data to and from SQL Server.

lessons

• Data transfer to and from SQL Server
• Import and export of table data
• Using bcp and BULK INSERT to import data
• Implementation and update of the data layer application

Lab 1: Importing and exporting data

• Import and Excel data with the import wizard
• Import a delimited text file using bcp
• Import a delimited text file using BULK INSERT
• Create and test an SSIS package to extract data
• Implement a data tier application

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Import and Excel data with the import wizard
• Import a delimited text file using bcp
• Import a delimited text file using BULK INSERT
• Create and test an SSIS package to extract data
• Implement a data tier application

Previous requirements

In addition to their professional experience, students who take this training must already have the following technical knowledge:

• Basic knowledge of the Microsoft Windows operating system and its core functionality.
• Working knowledge of Transact-SQL.
• Working knowledge of relational databases.
• Some experience with database design.

Language

• English course

• Labs: English