Summary

Anything built without a solid foundation risks crumbling. Following the basic tenets of high availability is crucial for success; avoiding the common pitfalls is not easy. In fact, more basic tenets that are specific to certain scenarios and technologies are covered later in the book, and others mentioned here are expanded on as they relate to a specific technology or scenario. Concepts such as reliability, security, growth, and performance are all recurring themes throughout this book.

Proper staffing is crucial, and the company benefits most from DBAs who can act as leaders in the data center. Beyond people, a major part of a successful data center is how it is configured and managed, as well as the process of how changes flow from environment to environment. The systems, processes, and agreements put in place must be realistic and maintainable , and they must be documented. All parties involvedfrom executive sponsors to administrators, end users to a vendors support engineers must have similar expectations and know how the entire process works. Any failures or missed steps along the way could prove fatal.

These first two chapters lay the foundation for the rest of the book, which is largely technology-specific .