A good way to keep documentation for databases as DBA

I'm following my own practices to document my job on databases, but also I'm wondering if they are correct or how other DBAs manage their own documentation for a day-to-day job.

We have about 5 instances or databases to check. Each instance has a number of schemas or users, tablespaces and datafiles, blobs, indexes etc.

On my Windows XP, I distribute my documentation in folders and Excel files.

I keep my scripts or queries as small text files. If I have 10 text files, each text file has one script or a documented command. These text files are storaged in folders. For example, one root folder is named "Scripts and Commands" that contains general scripts and useful commands for an Oracle DBA . This folder is divided by sub-folders. For example sub-folder "Tablespace_Management" contains scripts and commands for managing tablespaces.

Other root folder is named "Instance_1", which is the name of our instance 1. It contains scripts for recreating schemas, users, tablespaces, etc of that instance. It also contains specific queries for end-user information.
This folder contains sub-folder "Backup_Management" which has docs about the backup process.

Also, I keep an important Excel file with many sheets. One sheet lists server's IP, instances, schemas, passwords and some comments. Another sheet lists instances, schemas and tablespaces. Another sheet lists database servers and performance features like model, memory, processors, hard disks, etc.

I update manually this Excel file every three days by querying my databases or after any big change that I made to a database.

Of course I also use EM db console and Toad.

Is there any advice or suggestion that you could provide?

Thanks a lot ! Received on Sun Jun 06 2010 - 13:41:58 CDT