AI for DBAs (Database Administrators)

With Generative AI (a.k.a Gen AI) tools, Database Administrators (DBAs) can be more productive at work in less time. For example, Gen AI tools can be used for writing code. In a matter of a few minutes, we can generate quality code with "How-to" instructions with the help of Gen AI tools. Gone are the days when DBAs used to spend 1 or 2 weeks to write a database monitoring program in Python or Shell Scripting (Linux or Windows Powershell).

In this article, I will compare three of the most popular free Gen AI tools available. 

1. Claude AI (Sonnet 4.5) https://claude.ai/chat

2. Google Gemini https://gemini.google.com/

3. ChatGPT https://chatgpt.com/

Coding Task

Type the below question for generating code for developing a basic Oracle Exadata database cluster monitoring program.

I want to write code for monitoring Oracle Exadata cluster. I have a FULL RACK of 8 nodes. From a central monitoring server, I want to write a program in Python or Linux shell scripting that SSH into each of these 8 nodes and do monitoring such as node availability, Oracle database instance UP and DOWN, node load average, free memory and free disk space etc. Please write code for this program.

You will notice that in a matter of just a few minutes, each of these Gen AI tools produces code as per our requirement.

Which is the best Gen AI tool for DBAs for generating code ?

Though all the three Gen AI tools have done a decent job in generating the code for this monitoring program, Claude AI is the better one. Claude AI is better than ChatGPT and Google Gemini in the all the below four programming practices (coding practices).

1. Commenting

2. Verbose output (echo/print statements etc.)

3. Readability (Easy to understand Variable and Function/Procedure names)

4. Modularity (Separation of each sub-task into functions/procedures)

Additionally, Claude AI and ChatGPT have also written the code for faster execution. For example, for the Python code, both used ThreadPoolExecutor to monitor all 8 nodes of the cluster simultaneously for faster execution.

We would like to hear from the DBA community if you have more tips and hints in using Gen AI tools at work for Database Administration tasks. Please feel free to comment here.

Rebuild failed for index Execution timeout expired

Issue

In MS SQL Server 2019 RTM version, you may intermittently see index rebuild failures when attempted using SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) i.e by navigating using Databases => Database name => Table name => Indexes => Index name (right click) => Rebuild => Script Action to New Query Window

This can occur even if the ONLINE checkbox is unchecked. So, this error can occur with or without the ONLINE option.

Error messages

Rebuild failed for index

An exception occurred while executing a Transact-SQL statement or batch.

Execution Timeout Expired

The wait operation timed out.

    

Workaround

Try the manual method i.e by directly typing and executing the SQL statement "ALTER INDEX..."

Best books for digital marketing, websites and online sales

Do you have a new business or planning to start one ? Then, you definitely need a website to begin with. Plus, you need strategies to market your new business online. If you have a new website, you need strategies to get web visitors, then make these visitors buy your products online and finally make them repeat customers too with recurring high value purchases.

We recommend that you purchase a few books listed in this article and get a head start on the world of digital marketing to grow your online sales and web traffic.

But regardless, even offline businesses can benefit from reading these books. 

They are very well explained, easy to read even for beginners to marketing and the strategies provided actually costs less too. For the actionable advice and strategies provided by these books, it is worth it to buy all 4 of them. 

Plus, these are highly rated in Amazon with great reviews.

Please read the 3 books by Russell Brunson in that order. There may be a few chapters in these books that are not applicable for your business and therefore you can just skip reading those chapters.

1. DOTCOM Secrets by Russell Brunson

2. EXPERT Secrets by Russell Brunson

3. TRAFFIC Secrets by Russell Brunson

4. The 1-Page Marketing Plan by Allan Dib

Happy reading and hope to hear from your own successful experiences in digital marketing for your new or existing businesses. Please feel free to comment in this post.

Note: We do not have any association with these authors and we are recommending these books solely based on positive experiences we had after reading these books.

Web hosting recommendations for startups, small businesses and medium sized firms

In this post, we will provide some recommendations for web hosting and website development for new businesses (startups, small businesses etc.)

Purchase a Domain name (Domain Registrar)

We recommend Amazon Route 53 for purchasing new domain names (new website names). It is very quick and also offers features such as Auto renewal, Transfer lock etc. Amazon Route 53 also acts as a DNS service for creating DNS records for your new website.

Hire a web developer

If you are a new business and lack a web developer in-house, we recommend that you find a web developer with good review ratings in Freelancing marketplaces such as www.Fiverr.com. You can get work completed for your digital projects such as Website development with high quality and affordable prices. A $600 to $1000 overall budget for the web developer's services is a good starting point. 

Pro tip: When finalizing your web developer, please make sure that the web developer can also do the initial design/prototype of the website. https://www.figma.com/ is a popular tool for it.

Web content management system

We recommend Wordpress as the technology for building your website. It is the most widely used web content management system today. 

Wordpress Theme

A theme controls the layout along with details such as appearance, font, design elements and style too. Additionally, it helps in defining the appearance of common website elements such as menus, headers and footers etc. A Wordpress theme is the "skin and design framework" for websites built using Wordpress technology. 

Wordpress also offers an "administration" interface (a.k.a wp-admin) for the Wordpress ecosystem is very vast with lots of trusted 3rd party plugins etc. for SEO, security, backups, E-Commerce etc.

Elementor

A very popular Wordpress website builder and theme provider is Elementor. It even has the Pro version called "Elementor Pro" which is used for creating complex websites. The basic themes called the Hello Elementor themes are more than enough for building a great looking website for startups and small businesses. These days, we are seeing more and more Wordpress websites built using the Elementor theme. 

Web hosting providers

WPEngine

We recommend WPEngine for website hosting for websites built using Wordpress. Among things that standout in WPEngine are its automated backups, automatic SSL (security certificate) renewal, automatic updates to Wordpress software and it is also reasonably priced (around $25 per month for a single website). Plus, it offers a Sandbox (testing) environment too (Non-production website).

Amazon EC2

Amazon EC2 is a good alternative to WPEngine. But it requires setting up of the servers ourselves and also it requires creating an Amazon Load Balancer. The Load Balancer provides the SSL (security certificate) functionality and also helps in automatic renewal of SSL certificate for your website. Plus, you have to configure backups etc. manually for your new website incase you are not using a Wordpress plugin for backups already. Overall, hosting a website using WPEngine is much more simpler when compared with hosting in Amazon EC2. If you want more control and have a good cloud computing engineer in your company already, then Amazon EC2 is also good for hosting websites.

There are many other good web hosting providers such as GoDaddy.com etc. But given our lesser experience working with GoDaddy, we cannot provide more details on it. 

If you need help in choosing productivity plugins for your website such as for CRM, marketing, lead generation. form building and payments etc., please post a comment and we be glad to offer our advice.

AWS Route 53 - How to redirect traffic from one website to another

Introduction

This article describes the list of steps that are required to redirect traffic from one website (domain 1) to another website (domain 2) in Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Assumptions

1. The existing website uses AWS Route 53 for storing DNS records.

2. The existing website's web servers are hosted in Amazon EC2 and uses an Amazon Load Balancer. Furthermore, this article assumes that it is using a Classic Load Balancer (CLB). For redirecting traffic from one website (domain 1) to another website (domain 2), we require the use of an Application Load Balancer (ALB). So, it requires creating an ALB (if not already using one). This article also provides the details to create a new ALB.

Only Application Load Balancers (ALBs) support the advanced, content-based routing rules, including redirects. NLBs and CLBs operate at a different layer of the network (layer 4) and do not have the functionality to inspect the hostname and perform a redirect.

3. It is also assumed that all traffic to individual web pages in website 1 (domain 1) will be only directed to the main home page of website 2 (domain 2).

List of steps

• Log in to the AWS Management Console. From the services dashboard, go to Route 53. In the Route 53 dashboard, under the "DNS management" section, select "Hosted zones".

• Find and click on the hosted zone for domain 1 from the list. This is the domain/website you want to redirect from. (i.e domain 1 e.g example1.com)

• In the list of existing DNS records, search for the "Type" A or AAAA. Now check the value. If the value starts with "dualstack", it is most likely the DNS name of the EC2 load balancer.  Log in to the AWS Management Console. From the services dashboard, go to EC2 => Load Balancing => Load balancers. Now choose the existing load balancer name and check its DNS name. If this DNS name matches with that of the value of the A or AAAA record (written above) that starts after the string "dualstack.", then it confirms that the DNS record's value is the DNS name of the EC2 load balancer.

• If the existing load balancer is a Classic load balancer (CLB), then create a new Application load balancer (ALB) and create the two rules similar to the existing two rules of the CLB i.e one for HTTPS:443 Protocol:Port and another for HTTP:80 Protocol:Port combination under the "Listeners and rules" tab. Then create an additional rule for each of these two lines (select each of these Protocol:Port lines => Manage rules => Add rule). If the existing load balancer is already an Application load balancer (ALB), then just create an additional rule for each of these two lines (select each of these Protocol:Port lines => Manage rules => Add rule).

• For the new rule, please follow the below instructions.

a) For Host header put the Domain 1/website 1 URL (for e.g example1.com)

b) Actions => Routing action => Choose "Redirect to URL".

c) Redirect to URL => Choose "URI parts" and for Protocol, Port match with that of the existing Protocol:Port combination. For example HTTPS, 443 and HTTP, 80.

d) For  Custom host, path, query put Host as Domain 2 URL/website 2 URL (for e.g example2.com) and Path as / and for Query do not make any changes (leave the default value as is). Let the status code be "301 - Permanently moved". The Path value of "/" helps in redirecting traffic for individual web pages in website 1 (domain 1)  to only the main home page of website 2 (domain 2).

e) Save the rule

Last step

Finally, if you created a new Application Load Balancer (ALB), note its DNS name and then go to the A or AAAA record for domain1.com in AWS Route 53's Hosted zone  to update its value to point to the new ALB's DNS name (which Route 53 automatically puts the dualstack. suffix). This will ensure all traffic is directed to the ALB, where your new redirect rules will take effect.

Disclosure

Parts of this technical article are prepared using responses from Google's Gemini AI. But everything has been successfully validated using a LIVE AWS environment before publishing this article.