The New OS Wars

Posted on April 20, 2026 by way0utwest

In the last year I’ve seen a lot of statements about data and sovereignty between countries. While there have been concerns in the past, there seems to be more worry around the world with AI services primarily being run by, and hosted by, US companies. Plenty of my customers at Redgate Software have concerns over our ability to see data when we run AI models, though we don’t store the data. Once the session ends, the data is discarded by policy

Recently I saw a piece about France trying to rid itself of the reliance on US technology, specifically the Windows OS from Microsoft. They are looking to move to their own version of Linux, as well as a number of open source software packages. This quote was fascinating to me: “We can no longer accept that our data, our infrastructure, and our strategic decisions depend on solutions whose rules, pricing, evolution, and risks we do not control.”

With AI being added to lots of software, including OSes, I suspect that other countries might look to follow France. I know the EU is looking to move, and Brazil has been trying to use more Linux and OSS for decades. While I find Windows works well, I completely understand wanting to move, especially in this era where many software packages are web-based and can run on a different OS.

SQL Server runs on Linux, and half of my testing is on Linux, since I run SQL Server in a container on my laptop. My desktop still has a native Windows install, but I find it easy to port almost all code back and forth between the two versions. While I understand others might have a preference for PostgreSQL or MySQL or some other OSS platform, I think SQL Server provides a great value for many organizations. I also think it’s incredibly hard to port your software and data from one database platform to another.

I do wonder if governments or organizations outside the US that look to leave Windows will also look to leave SQL Server. It’s one thing to move away from the OS and software like Office. A little training will get most users productive on a new system in a relatively short time. Moving a software application and its database is a much larger challenge.

I expect SQL Server to remain incredibly popular for many years, and with the ability to configure the new AI capabilities to use your own models, I am not sure a country that wants to reduce their reliance on US technology will choose to do so for their databases. They will likely start elsewhere and continue to use SQL Server for years.

Steve Jones

Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Spotify, or iTunes.

Note, podcasts are only available for a limited time online.

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Monday Monitor Tips: Oracle Custom Metrics

Posted on April 20, 2026 by way0utwest

One of the popular features of Redgate Monitor has been the ability to add custom mertics for various purposes. This has been popular, and along with our curated list at sqlmonitormetrics.com, it’s a feature that’s used by many.

It has been a SQL Server only function for awhile, but customers have requested other platforms. We’ve added the capability for Oracle and PostgreSQL.

This is part of a series of posts on Redgate Monitor. Click to see the other posts.

Adding Custom Metrics

You can see on my custom metric config page that I have a few business metrics added. I recommend these to customers as often a business metric catches an issue before it appears in Perfmon type data. Let’s add a new metric. I’ll click the

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I’ll click the “Add a custom metric on the right side” and will get a new form.

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This form used to be mostly the same, but the “Choose where to collect data from” didn’t have a drop down. It only had the 1. Select instances and the 2. Select databases (to the right). This new drop down is where you pick the platform.

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If I click the drop down, I see three choices: SQL Server, Oracle, and PostgreSQL.

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I can select Oracle and my select database section disappears. This is because an instance and a database are the same thing in Oracle.

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If I select PostgreSQL, I can still select databases.

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The rest of the form works the same way. When I’ve selected Oracle, I get a default query listed that lets me know the structure of my result set. I need to return an integer with the con_id, a metric value that is a scalar and an optional string with details.

From there things work as they do with other metrics.

Summary

This post shows a new capability in Redgate Monitor for Oracle, where you can track your own data, as you see fit, and then let Redgate Monitor alert on changes, graph this over time, and help you better understand your system.

We are enhancing and adding to Redgate Monitor every week, but there are always more things that many of you want, and custom metrics give you the ability to choose what you want to monitor.

Redgate Monitor is a world class monitoring solution for your database estate. Download a trial today and see how it can help you manage your estate more efficiently.

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Working Better Under Pressure

Posted on April 17, 2026 by way0utwest

One of my colleagues wrote a great post about DBAs and developers, about how a DBA’s pushback on bad code isn’t to be difficult, it’s because they can see the future. I never thought of myself as a modern-day Nostradamus, predicting the future of system performance. Apparently I had another title besides DBA.

Working under pressure and with short deadlines often leads to short cuts. I’ve made them. I’ve implemented quick hot fixes. I’ve forgotten to port changes back to development databases. I’ve increased our tech debt load, just to solve a more immediate problem.

The challenge is cleaning things up later, when we have more deadlines and things to fix. It seems that we never have enough time to do the job the way we would like, and there’s certainly no time to go back later and fix things. Most management won’t make this a priority until things get so bad that we have to rewrite a lot of code (which we should never do).

DevOps, pipelines, automations, and yes, AI, helping can reduce some of the tech debt we create if we use those tools appropriately. Which is a big IF. Often we have more immediate pressures that prevent us from finding time to invest in our systems or in ourselves.

Getting a handle on bad code, checking it early, and doing so every time with automation can help prevent some of these issues, even when we are in a hurry. That’s why it pays to adapt our work and learn from others. Listen to that DBA that keeps your systems alive. Listen to the DevOps engineers that want you to automate things. Certainly, make them prove their suggestions work, but adopt those patterns. Learn to work with them, rather than against them.

They can see the future.

Steve Jones

Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Spotify, or iTunes.

Note, podcasts are only available for a limited time online.

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A New Word: Soufrise

Posted on April 17, 2026 by way0utwest

soufrise – . The maddening thrill of an ambiguous flirtation, which quivers in tension halfway between platonic and romantic – maybe, but no, but maybe – leaving you guessing what’s going on inside their chest, forced to assume that at any given moment their attraction is both alive and dead at the same time.

I don’t think in terms of romance here, having been married for nearly 28 years, but I do think about this in terms of my career.

When I’ve been approached about opportunities or jobs, or someone expresses interest (or I do), it feels a little like soufrise. It’s both a real opportunity or they really want to hire me, like a romanace. Or maybe it’s just a conversation that’s exploratory without any real intention of moving forward (platonic).

This is a hard place to be, where you might want things to go one way or the other, and the other party might feel differently.

To me, this is where communication matters, though I certainly understand not necessarily wanting to answer the question about whether this is a romantic or platonic relationship.

From the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

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