Andy Levy has some Q&A about dealing with large numbers of databases on a single server. Part one:
What was the most difficult challenge faced initially with a large environment and how does that challenge relate to now?
For me personally, it was just getting a handle on how to deal with this many databases because I didn’t “grow up” with the system. I walked into an environment with a lot of established tools and procedures for performing tasks and had to learn how those all fit together while also not breaking anything. You don’t want to be the person who walks in the door, says “why are you doing things like this, you should be doing it this other way” and then falls victim to hubris. If something seems unusual, there’s probably a reason for that and you need to understand the “why” before trying to change anything.
How large is the team that manages the databases? Is the knowledge shared and everyone can work on everything or do these people fill niches?
There are two of us. We each have a few specialties but we aren’t “territorial” and we try to share as much as possible. If we aren’t both directly involved in a given project, we keep each other in the loop as it progresses.
Stay tuned for part 3.