By 2020, research reveals the world’s servers will contain nearly as many digital bits as there are stars in the universe. This deluge of data is doubling in size every two years, and yet your customers expect information to be seamlessly available – and robustly secured.
It’s a difficult balancing act, and today’s SQL Servers must now cope with a range of issues. You need to prevent data loss, outages, performance issues and security breaches, to name a few.
There’s a very effective way to achieve this. To proactively protect and manage your corporate data, you need to conduct a regular SQL Server audit.
However, there are many different types of audit out there and different levels of quality. You need to find the right one for your business, which provides you with the right level of information and the tools to make sure your business thrives in our digital times.
In this post, we will outline the benefits of a SQL Server audit and walk through the three different options available at QUBARK to help you make the right decision.
What is a SQL Server audit?
In general, an audit will expose any vulnerabilities in your SQL Server infrastructure, and additionally your operational processes. It helps diagnose causes and symptoms, which enables you to take a proactive approach toward reducing problems.
For example, an audit can help you overcome issues like connection timeouts, maintenance job failing, important error messages such as a corrupted database in the error logs and slowing databases.
There are different audits available, depending on your business priorities and the activities you may want to track and better manage.
At QUBARK, we offer three types of audit, all of which are carried out by our expert team of Microsoft Certified Masters.
#1 SQL Server Health Check and Risk Audit
What is it? Our SQL Server Health Check and Risk Audit service exposes any vulnerabilities in your infrastructure and operational processes.
What happens? We don’t need physical access to your servers. Data collection is done remotely by a Microsoft Certified Master. A detailed report is produced listing all the issues and recommendations, including a remediation plan.
Who is it suitable for? Any business that wants to protect and optimise its SQL Server environment. Only XML files are produced, and this is a remote audit so, this is a secure option and one that’s available to any business around the world, at low cost and with minimum disruption.
Benefits? This audit is the equivalent in quality to a Microsoft SQL Risk Assessment As A Service. But there’s no waiting list, so your final results can be available within three days. It’s also a cost-effective option, at < £4,000.
#2 SQL Server Performance Optimisation
What is it? Your performance data is collected and analysed to identify any costly queries and potential bottlenecks.
What happens? We use remote control and conference calls to assess the performance of your SQL Servers. So, we don’t need physical access, reducing disruption.
Who is it suitable for? Any business, anywhere around the world.
Benefits? We have a 100% delivery rate, solving every performance issue we have been asked to work on during this type of audit. Your team can also learn from our SQL Microsoft Certified Masters, watching them as they work. We’re happy to answer your questions.
#3 Optimisation of SQL Licensing costs
What is it? This audit reveals how much your organisation could save through consolidation and optimisation of your SQL licensing costs.
What happens? We conduct an audit of your SQL estate to consolidate. Once this study is complete, a consolidation roadmap is created.
Who is it suitable for? Any business who wants to save money and better understand how much your SQL instances need in terms of resources, in order to reduce costs.
Benefits? You could realise massive cost savings thanks to the resulting optimisation of your SQL Server environment. One client saved more than one million Euros over a three-year period thanks to this audit service.
In conclusion
We offer an extensive range of SQL Server services to our customers. Every option analyses your data to help you optimise your environment, protecting it from possible issues and identifying areas of improvement. If you’d like to find out more, click here.
