Voice of the DBA

Author: way0utwest

  • The Full Court CosmosDB Press

    This year at the PASS Summit, Dr. Rimma Nehme (b|t) will give another keynote address. She has spoken at a number of previous Summits, and is a very popular speaker. This time her topic is CosmosDB, which is where she’s been working at Microsoft for some time. I was lucky enough to see Dr. Nehme at Build 2017 talk some CosmosDB, and I’m sure she’s got more to say this now.

    Actually, I’ve been a bit surprised by all of the writing about CosmosDB that I see taking place. Perhaps it’s that the CosmosDB Twitter account is very active, but it seems that so many .NET developers and other non-SQL Server professionals are talking about how they are building projects and platforms on CosmosDB. I follow plenty of SQL people, but it seems there is a tremendous amount of activity on CosmosDB (and R/Data Science), more than I see with plain old SQL Server (POSQL?).

    When I first saw DocumentDB, the forerunner of CosmosDB, I thought it was a good platform for some workloads. Certainly the heavy write a document, read the same thing of the XBOX profiles and some of their games seems like a good use of the technology. When they added MongoDB, I was slightly more interested, but still not a lot. I really haven’t seen many workloads that seem to exceed what SQL Server can do in a relational platform. At least, not if you write efficient code and buy enough hardware. The change to CosmosDB, however, was really interesting. Allowing graph APIs, key values, and documents in one service is something I am sure is attractive to many developers. Especially the heavy use of JSON, which seems to be a format many developers prefer over datasets.

    I know Microsoft would like more people to use CosmosDB as it’s completely a PaaS, pay-as-you-go service, and that could easily increase their revenue if they can get many people using the product. The have invested quite a bit into the platform, with latency guarantees, multiple consistency models, and plenty of scalability. It’s certainly on my list of topics to dig more into how CosmosDB works and where it might be applicable to solving data problems.

    I think there are applications where a CosmosDB datastore will work well, but I wonder if this is more of just a front end, gather data service, that will require additional databases behind the service were data can be combined and aggregated for other reporting. I don’t know that querying your graph tables alongside key-values and documents will be as easy as it might be in a relational system, but hopefully we’ll see some people (perhaps me) experimenting and reporting back on the complexities and advantages of such a datastore.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and Libsyn.

  • I want a new gadget with less features

    Years ago I bought a Pebble smartwatch. I didn’t back the Kickstarter, but a few friends did and I liked the product. I wore mine for almost two years before it started to die. I can be rough on gadgets, so it’s possible I banged it and caused my own damage. I tried a Fitbit (original) briefly, but really liked having time on my wrist.

    I got a Pebble 2, which I really like, but I’m losing it. I got my son a Pebble 2 as well, but recently he fell and cracked the screen on his. He’s in college, but since I’ve had the use of his motorcycle, I decided to give him mine.

    That means I need a new watch. Since the Pebble watches aren’t being updated and maintained anymore (no thanks to Fitbit), I wasn’t sure I wanted to get another one. I could, as they are still for sale at various places. I decided to look at other devices, perhaps some that might have better data options.

    I put a few queries out to friends, but I’m not quite sure that I have a better choice. As I think about it, there are only a few things that I really use.

    • Clock/time – Especially important as I end up speaking in different time zones
    • Vibrating alarm – This is my alarm clock and allows me to wake up easily, without disturbing my wife.
    • Waterproof – I do not want to take this off for a shower or when I swim. So, most Fitbits are out.
    • Steps – I like step tracking. It’s a nice metric that I like to watch periodically.
    • Heart rate – I don’t check this too often, but it’s a good metric that I do want to watch as I get older.

    Some devices have these features (and many more), but many are also in the $200 range, which seems like a lot to me. Especially in this age of powerful, commodity hardware. The Pebble 2 did these things well, in a simple way.

    I’m looking at reviews and comparing items based on recommendations, but more and more, it seems like another Pebble 2 might be the best choice. Maybe I should just buy 2, in anticipation of the future.

  • Voting for Change

    Microsoft does listen to us. They’ve made a number of changes in SQL Server 2016/2107 in response to community votes and requests. The main way to make these is through Connect, though keep in mind that lots of items get filed, and I don’t know how much consideration is given to suggestions for improvements and enhancements. I’m sure a significant amount of time is spent tracking down bugs and attempting to reproduce them.

    The best way to work for change is to advocate your request and get others to vote on items. I’m sure there are hundreds, maybe thousands of good requests out there, and most of us don’t have time to review them. We’ll often vote only when we hear about an issue from friends or on Twitter. Even then, many of us place different priorities on issues, and might not vote for suggestions that we don’t find useful. However, attention does get votes, so let people know what you would like to see.

    That being said, there are a few that I ran across and thought would be worth mentioning. One that I think is an easy choice, and should have been included a long time ago is the ability to increase the number of SQL Agent log files. Just as we can increase the engine log file count, we ought to be able to do the same thing for Agent logs. Auditing and proper security should ensure we have plenty of log files for busy systems. Plus, this should be easy to change. In line with that, why not more system health session files?

    I like this one for hidden columns, which might be really handy for legacy code. What I’d really like is the string or binary data truncated error to be enhanced. I can’t, for the life of me, understand why this hasn’t gotten some sort of fix. It’s been lingering for far too long, wasting countless development hours. Maybe they could fix it with new virtual tables.

    There are plenty of other issues in Connect, some of which might be very useful, quite a few of which are silly. I still think shining light on some of these and getting more votes might change the future of the product. At least, that’s what I’m optimistic about.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 3.2MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and Libsyn.

  • The Code Coverage Report

    I had someone that told me recently that they needed to find a way to get code coverage in T-SQL. Not for them, not to improve quality, but because their manager wanted a report.

    OK, here it is.

    First, build a nice SSRS report that displays your company logo, a header, the current date, and a pie chart. Yes, I know pie charts are bad, but they’re good for managers that want something like code coverage.

    Now, for the data source of the report, here’s your query:

    SELECT 90 + ((RAND() * 8)-2)

    Now, you won’t always get over 90%, which is what some people want, but you’ll get over 90 eventually.