Every DBA starts writing a management system

Before we get too far, you should know: you get licenses for free today, right now. Just be sure to sign up before August 24, 2017.

Every database administrator, if they’re in their job long enough, starts writing their own management system to handle their SQL Server instances. But a DBA’s job includes more than, “making my own job better and easier”. There’s always another installation, another restore, or another downtime.

We were there. We needed something. And we were a household of DBA-consultants, so we took the time to actually finish the system. And, to add some really masterful features that no one thought of, and a few other things that sound impossible (but, it turns out, are just really hard to do). And to package it up and give it a name and an adorable logo. The end result is Minion Enterprise.

And for our company’s second anniversary, we’re giving away licenses for free. Just be sure to sign up before August 24, 2017.

Masterful Muti-Server Management

SQL Server management is something genuinely new. This isn’t performance monitoring, because databases need far more than that: this is environment monitoring.

ME is for audits.

It’s for security management.

It’s for disk space management and alerting. And, for security, troubleshooting, backups, maintenance, and a ton of other things that data professionals need.

And you get three permanent licenses, free.

Examples to Impress

Security Save: When a user is added to any server level role – like sysadmin – via any means, Minion Enterprise alerts you. If user Accounting03 is added to the Active Directory group Users, which is in the group Superusers, which has sysadmin access on 30 servers, you get an alert!

Missed, not Failed, Backups: You have alerts on all of your SQL Server instances that tell you when a backup fails, right? But what you really need to know is whether any database has gone a long time without a backup, whether that’s because backups failed, the SQL Agent is off, or backups were never set up for a server. Minion Enterprise alerts you on missing backups, instead of failed backups.

The Set-Based Enterprise: The A database administrator’s job is a difficult thing, in part because it’s hard to get a good view of the entire enterprise. Which databases, on which servers, have bad file growth rates, or the worst indexing scheme? Which instances have “optimize for ad hoc workloads” turned off? What permissions does User3 have on all production instances? Minion Enterprise provides the data and the tools to answer these and a thousand other questions all at once, instead of “Server By Agonizing Server”.

Did I mention the three free licenses yet?

Also starring: Backups and Maintenance

We provide an innovative suite of backup and maintenance tools free, for SQL Server users everywhere. Each of these modules ties seamlessly into Minion Enterprise, to take advantage of ME’s central management powers. You can adjust schedules, review logs, and configure settings for any or all instances, on your central repository.

For more about these free modules, see:

Of course, if you don’t use these, you’ll still get your missed backup alerts!

Let’s Wrap This Up

There is a large amount of proof online that we can talk about all this at great lengths, and write about it even longer. You can also get more information – FAQs, tutorials, and documentation – on MinionWare.net. Here is our highlights document, for a start.

Just sign up for your three free licenses, and we’ll get you started.  Installing and configuring ME takes about five minutes. We’ll also be happy to schedule a demo, or answer any questions you might have (email Support@MidnightDBA.com).

Of course there are just a few caveats:

  1. Sign up before August 24.  It’s a good idea to just do it now, because after August 24, the free license offer is over, and you’ll have to content yourself with a trial.
  2. Current version only.  Free licenses are eligible for patches and service releases of the current version, but not upgrades.
  3. Includes 3 months of support. Afterward that, a support contract will need to be purchased, if you want continued support.
  4. Additional licenses are available for purchase.
  5. Licenses are not transferable to any other companies.
  6. Sorry, no repeat giveaways! If you or your company have won free licenses from us before, you can’t do it again.

Try Minion Enterprise, and be pleasantly impressed.