Last updated: January 10, 2020
With the new Docusnap version 6.2, it is now possible to inventory various database systems. Besides Microsoft SQL Server databases, you can inventory and document Oracle databases. Today, Microsoft’s SQL Server can be found in nearly every IT network. No matter which database server version you are using, Docusnap is the tool of choice for optimum documentation. Docusnap also reads the permissions structure for the SQL Server, which can then be archived. This means that you can keep this security-relevant information for SQL Server – the same way as for Exchange Server. Just retrieve the tables, views, procedures, and access rights of each individual instance and database and save this data in the Docusnap database.
Use a dedicated inventory account
For performing the inventory, the only thing you need is an authentication, i.e. a user account with sufficient access rights to the SQL Server. It is not necessary to install an agent. Do not use the default SQL sa user, but rather create a dedicated database user or an AD account to access and inventory all your SQL Servers and instances with Docusnap. Protect this account with a rather complex password. You can easily do so as this account will not be used in your daily work. Using a separate account also has the advantage that, in case of SQL Server performance problems, it is easier to identify which process and which account are causing the problems. So, if it happens that the problems are due to the process associated with the Docusnap account, you will find that out quickly. For this reason, it makes sense to always create a separate account for each application that manages a database on the server. In this article, I will not dive into details of the inventory procedure. For more information on this, please refer to the Docusnap User Manual. Thanks to a wizard-driven workflow, it really is not that much of an effort to configure the inventory process.
Docusnap creates a separate object in the Data Explorer for each SQL Server instance. If your production environment includes multiple database servers with a corresponding number of instances, Docusnap will retrieve a huge amount of data. But please remember that an overly detailed inventory of a database server might impair its performance! If you have doubts here, perform the inventory overnight. In addition, make sure that no data backup will be carried out while the scan is running. If you chose to inventory every little detail that can be retrieved, a scan of even a medium-sized database may take several hours. As mentioned before, the amount of data that can be retrieved is enormous.
In many major computing environments, multiple database servers are used. Docusnap creates a graphical representation of the SQL Servers and the databases residing on them so that you can easily stay on top of things. In addition, Docusnap can generate entity relation (ER) diagrams for you. These overviews are too complex to be created manually, and even with Docusnap, this process may take a lot of time. But it results in a wealth of information that can help you with error analyses or problem solving. Since it is possible to schedule the inventory scans to be run in the background, you can keep the information up-to-date. This is an automated process requiring no additional effort.