[RESOLVED] SQL Server Best Practice

[GaryMazzone]

Hi all

I'm looking for any ideas on a best practice for rebooting SQL Server (2005 Enterprise).

We have some here who think it should be re-booted every month. I say no way. Is there a best practice around this?


Gary

[techgnome]

szlamany would best to answer that, it's what he does. Everywhere I've been we've only ever rebooted SQL Server when absolutely necessary - patches & upgrades applied, or if a process goes running off loose and can't be shut down any other way.

What's their reasoning for a monthly reboot?

-tg

[GaryMazzone]

I have no real clue just what they did before. I say leave it alone. The machine should be able to run for months (at least) with out an issue. I early versions of windows I know there was an issue but not any longer.

[kevchadders]

Yeah same in our company as it is in techgnome's. We only reboot when absolutely necessary.

I suppose a lot can depend on the hardware you have set up running the servers.

[techgnome]

shoot... Iv'e got an old 486 running SQL Server 2005, Windows Server 2003, acting as a file server and radio station server...... Um... let's see... it's been at least 3 months since I rebooted... and that was only because of a security update that was applied...

-tg

[GaryMazzone]

That is what I told the support people here. They think that 3 months running time for Windows Server 2003 and SQL Server 2005 is a long time. I say let it go. If we need to reboot we'll find out don't do it for the heck of it.

[kevchadders]

Yeah... reboot's should only be when there are problems with the server...

Memory leaks... conenction timeouts etc. and it has been deemed by the business (via advice from IT Support) that a reboot is recommended... normally out of hours to lessen the impact to the business, with a email beforehand send out to communicate with the business.

I would be worried if i worked in a company where there want to reboot for 'the heck of it'!

[Siddharth Rout]

My insignificant piece on this topic

People usually do it... I was curious so I checked with my IT Head. He told me it is good if you re-boot the server every month as it releases a lot of memory... I asked him if he does it... strangely he doesn't because he doesn't get the time... but then he also said that he would love to...

I also checked the web and found that what he said is absolutely true for example see this link (point 5)...

http://blog.sqlauthority.com/2007/09...ommand-prompt/

[szlamany]

In my 8 years of having some pretty hefty customers using MS SQL I've never seen a need or heard of a requirement to re-boot the SQL service.

I've dealt with some runaway tempdb's in my time - but only a couple.

From my experience it's not needed.

Although I cannot think of any real harm either - other then downtime, schedule job failures - stuff like that...

[chris128]

I'm a network/server admin and I would not recommend rebooting servers if there is no real reason...its just asking for trouble really. Servers are designed to run for months on end, we have several servers here that have not been rebooted for over 6 months. I've supported a lot of different networks at different companies and never seen anyone reboot servers on a schedule for no real reason. The way I see it, server reboots are a last resort to fix a problem or update something and should not be done for any other reason.

[techgnome]

My insignificant piece on this topic

People usually do it... I was curious so I checked with my IT Head. He told me it is good if you re-boot the server every month as it releases a lot of memory... I asked him if he does it... strangely he doesn't because he doesn't get the time... but then he also said that he would love to...

I also checked the web and found that what he said is absolutely true for example see this link (point 5)...

http://blog.sqlauthority.com/2007/09...ommand-prompt/

Oner person saying "yeah! I do that" doesn't make it true.... especially for point #5 ... if the temp DB needs to be cleaned out that often, then the dba and the developers need to take a GOOD LONG LOOK at their processes and stored Procs. There's way too many temp tables being created and not dropped (that's what causes the growth of tempdb) ... And I don't think "people usually do it" ... I think a "few" and it's a very small number, do it and it's only because of a unfounded paranoid believe that it is good. Reboots of a server should be kept to a minimum and only as a last resort.

-tg

[GaryMazzone]

My insignificant piece on this topic

People usually do it... I was curious so I checked with my IT Head. He told me it is good if you re-boot the server every month as it releases a lot of memory... I asked him if he does it... strangely he doesn't because he doesn't get the time... but then he also said that he would love to...

I also checked the web and found that what he said is absolutely true for example see this link (point 5)...

http://blog.sqlauthority.com/2007/09...ommand-prompt/

I saw the same thread when I started looking at this. Post 5 made no sense to me. We do not see and issue with the TempDB growing in size and just posting a script the says net start and net stop does not give any meaning to a Best Practice issue.