Watch those servers

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If you're an active DBA, you'll find that your mornings are spent reviewing failed jobs and checking to see what else needs watching. At my company we were fortunate to purchase Idera's Diagnostic Manager. It is a good tool for reviewing your databases at a quick glance and identify any areas that need attention, ie. Space constratins, failed jobs and other critical processes.

Not everyone has the ability to go out and spend thousands of dollars on a monitoring solution. That's why I really liked the following article by David Bird over at Sql Server Central (one of my favorite Sql Sites) titled SQL Overview IV - DBA's Morning Review (http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Administration/63042/). In it he describes a set of reports that you can use to review your servers quickly during the morning and spend more time fixing problems than reviewing things. I Plan to implement many of these solutions in my own environment and see how well it stacks up to our paid solution. I will report back and let you all know!

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