(With sincere respect and admiration of the Coasters.)
Lunchtime and you’re heading out the door
Alerts ring your server is no more
CPU is pegged, SQL stuck, transactions are stacking
Operations says your response better not be lacking
Dakety DAC (SQL won’t talk back)
An emergency is not the time to plan. I was recently responding to a client call regarding a unresponsive server when I realized that I had never tested the Dedicated Administrator Connection (DAC) on the server. I bowed my head, said a quick prayer to the SQL gods, and then tried to connect to the server. Fortunately, the DAC was enabled and I was able to resolve the issue fairly simply and quickly, but the situation made me think about what I had not planned for.
Remember that the default setting for Remote Administrator Connections (RAC) is DISABLED; not something you want to discover when the server is seized-up because then your only recourse may be to bounce the server. Changing the default setting of RAC is as simple as running the following script:
SP_CONFIGURE ‘remote admin connections’, ‘1’
GO
RECONFIGURE
GO
Now you’re prepared for any emergency and we can finish our song.
Don’t you give me no dirty looks
Your DBA’s hip; he knows what cooks
Tell my girlfriend she’s outside
I got time to take that ride
Dakety DAC (SQL did talk back)