For my final blog about SQL Saturday #132, I wanted to leave you with one all-encompassing piece of advice that I received from the pre-conference training on Friday prior to the event.  The pre-con titled “Demystifying Database Administration Best Practices” was presented by Microsoft Certified Masters Robert Davis (twitter|blog) and Argenis Fernandez (twitter|blog).  

Of course, I will preface this advice with the fact that I am passionate about Best Practices and I also love using the Best Practice Analyzer from Microsoft to detect new violations of best practices.  It is great to run on an instance when I am in a hurry and do not have time to go through a check list.  I simply want to see if any new changes have been made since the last time I ran the tool also known as has anyone changed anything on the server without my knowledge.  With that being said, I give you the advice.

“Do not always rely or trust the information from Best Practice Analyzer”

I do not remember if Robert or Argenis said this pearl and it really doesn’t matter because it is great advice for you and me.  Do not mistake all of my previous posts on the BPA as gospel.  It is a great tool, but it is an automated solution.  It simply cannot know all of the specifics of your server, applications and environments.  Hopefully you do! 

This is the reason that you can choose to disregard some items so that you never see them again.  I personally do not like doing that because if something changes in my department then I forgot all about the warning because I disregarded.  If I see it is a warning then I know it is still there but there is nothing I can do about it. 

Mixed mode authentication is a great example.  We have to run it on some servers because of vendor applications but we are not happy about it.  This will trigger a warning every time, but I do not disregard it because at some point that may change.

 Have a great weekend and enjoy!