Database Underground | Sean McCown » Katmai's Cool DBA Feature

February 25, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Katmai's Cool DBA Feature

TAGS: SQL Server

OK, I said I would be looking for a DBA-specific feature, and it looks like I found one. I knew about this before, it just didn't come to mind the other day when I was writing the other blog.

Katmai has this cool feature where you can run code against a group of servers. And I don't know if it's specifically for DBAs, but it's certainly well suited for us. I'm constantly having to run code on a number of servers like giving a new user rights to multiple boxes, or deploying an SP to a lot of boxes. This is a fabulous feature and it looks like MS got a couple things right here.
1. When one box is unavailable it continues to connect to the other boxes.
2. If one box has an error, it doesn't affect the other boxes.
3. You can register a single box in multiple server groups so you can group them logically by application.

Things that didn't get done as well as I'd like:

1. It would be nice to have the same thing at a DB level on an individual box. So instead of having to create a cursor or use the built-in MSforeachDB cursor, I could group the DBs on my server to admin them all at once.

2. I wish you could just copy an instance of a registered server that just logically belonged to different groups. The way it's currently done, you can register a server in multiple server groups, but they're all separate registrations. If I need to change my password or even auth method in that registered server, and I've got it in 25 groups, I have to change it 25 times.

Those aren't really complaints, just things that would have made the feature perfect. Still though, it's a really nice feature, so kudos MS.
I've put together a short Camtasia just to demonstrate how it works.

Posted by Sean McCown on February 25, 2008 09:06 AM

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