1. RPO, RTO & SLA: 3 Letter Words for When the SHT hits the FAN
Josh Smith
RPO, RTO & SLA: 3 Letter Words for When the SHT hits the FAN

2. Who’s This Guy Then?
Production DBA (5 Years) Spokane PASS Chapter Leader (2 years)
Social media in order of formality…
This developer loved NOLOCK.

3. But first: Thank you!
Any questions feel free to let me know at any time…

4. What We Do: Protect the Data!
We think a lot about the things we hope we never have to do.
Recover corrupt data
Recover purged data
Recover deleted data
Recover dropped database
Recover failed SQL Instance
Recover failed server
How can we lose data? Let’s recount the ways:
User deletes data (in the application or via SSMS)
Deletes updates without a where clause
Application errors
Disk corruption
Some vendor drops their application database on accident
SQL instance failure
Hardware failure
Bojack Horseman, Thoughts and Prayers 2017

5. What Do Our End Users Think About?
Unless they’ve been told otherwise your end users believe their data will be available 24x7 with no downtime and no data loss! A Service Level Agreement is a way to let them know this is not the case…
Here enters the SLA:
you don’t want to wait until a disaster to work out the details of your recoverability.
Bojack Horseman, Let’s Find Out 2015
Our Databases and Tables: What’s Stored There? Do They Store things?? Let’s find out!

6. Recover Point Objective
How much data can the business afford to lose?
Measured in time (minutes to days)
This will determine your back frequency and strategy.
Standard RPO
I can lose no data
I can lose x minutes of data
I can lose x hours of data
I can lose x days of data
Daily full?, weekly full + diffs
Logs
Log shipping?
AG?
Bojack Horseman, Yesterdayland 2015

7. Recovery Time Objective
How long can the business afford for the application to be down.
Measured in time (minutes-days)
Time to recovery will define recovery plan.
What are our recovery options?
AGs
Log Shipping
Secondary site
Bare metal restore
Bojack Horseman, Brand New Couch 2015

8. An SLA is Negotiation
An SLA informs everyone what the ultimate expectation is regarding the data. Other important information can be added: Do regulatory requirements regarding the data exist? Document them here, so everyone knows what the expectations are.
Sumary slide:
The SLA is the tool to have a discussion around what you have the resources to accomplish.
AGs are expensive and difficult to maintain. If your org can’t afford the effort they won’t be able to avoid downtime in disaster.
Once the SLA is initially filled out an honest conversation about the time and money to meet those requests can be had.
 DON’T WAIT FOR A DISASTER TO WORK OUT THE DETAILS
Additional important information can be added
Are there regulatory requirements for handling data and backups? When are your maintenance windows? Etc. [“demo” Sample SLA]
Bojack Horseman, Brand New Couch 2015

9. Samples Blank SLA http://bit.ly/2Fj5saI Brent Ozar worksheet:
Your org may have SLA templates already (even if you have application SLAs you are off to a good start)
I have a nice formal looking sla that can be adapted ()
Brent Ozar has a good worksheet in their First Responder kit (show sample)
Bojack Horseman, Later 2014

10. Fin