Voice of the DBA

Author: way0utwest

  • The Wish List

    It’s the holiday season and a joyous time for many of us. I do hope you are feeling the giving spirit and looking to creates smiles for others as you prepare for your particular celebration during the break from work next week. This is certainly a time to remember that many others are less fortunate that most of us that work in technology, and I’d encourage you to consider giving something to help others.

    Howver, many of us will receive gifts this holiday season, and in the spirit of having some fun, I wanted to make a fun poll this week.

    What is on the top of your wish list that would help improve your time at work?

    If you are like me, the one thing you’d really like is more time. It’s unlikely I (or you) will receive that particular gift, but I know that it’s the one resource that is always limited for me. Barring that, I think there are a few things that might make work time a bit better for me.

    I’m not in an office, but having a nice set of headphones to help me concentrate on a task, or even relax while traveling would be good. My laptop is starting to have some issues, so I’ll be looking to replace it at some point, but many of you might find yourself working faster with a newer, more powerful machine. No matter what your hardware, you need a place to work, so maybe 2015 is the time to try a taller, or faster, desk. Perhaps you just need a few more USB ports, a little power on the go, or even a new way to commute to the office.

    The array of possibilities for changing work continues to grow as technology advances the world. We can work anywhere, though it is important to stop working and relax. Perhaps the best thing for many of us might be a way to refresh and recharge away from work so that we’ll be ready to hit the ground running when we return. The best way to do that is to take your vacation.

    Let us know what might be on your fun list, and have a fantastic holiday season. I know I will as I’m leaving tomorrow for a week in Steamboat Springs.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 2.3MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and LibSyn.

  • Deleting Data

    Like Tim Berners-Lee, I find the “right to be forgotten” law in Europe to be dangerous. The tremendous growth of data in our world means that searches become increasingly important in order for us to find data. If data is removed from searches, then for all practical purposes, it might cease to exist.

    I think that is disturbing. As a data professional, I try to ensure that the quality and integrity of data is maintained. I really to try to avoid ever deleting data (preferring to archive or hide it) in case it’s ever needed later. Far, far too often I’ve had someone ask me to remove something, only to have them ask for it’s return a short time later.

    I know that this law isn’t removing the data. The original sources will still contain the data, but search engines won’t return it. On one hand that means that many of us won’t ever realize that the data exists. In some sense, this will return us to the very limited, analog search engines of the past, where we depending on indexes compiled on microfiche to find information stored in libraries. On the other hand, perhaps this will give rise to data investigators that will develop their own methods and archives that enable them to offer services where they can find the “forgotten” data.

    I can’t decide if I think this law is a huge step back, or a correction against some of the overzealous data creation that occurs in the spur of the moment. Certainly data about past events is valuable and important, but the way much of the world uses a search engine, clicking on a link or two and accepting the information as valid, can be misleading. Time will tell if this is a good idea or not, and I’m curious to see how well the law performs.

    Steve Jones

     

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 2.0MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and LibSyn.

  • SQL Konferenz

    I’ve spoken at lots of events, but all in the US and the UK. Next year I get my first talk outside of those locations, going to the SQL Server Konferenz near Frankfurt, Germany.

    The agenda is up, and I’ll be talking testing and tSQLt there, and it’s cool to see my name up there. I’m also glad to see the UK flag there to note I’ll be presenting in English.

    konferenz

    Fingers crossed that things go well.

  • Load Balanced IIS Machines

    I noticed a contest this week while working on the Database Weekly newsletter. It’s the Cloud Hero contest, with the chance to win a Surface Pro 3. I could always use another device, or at least a device I could give away, so I decided to enter.

    There are a few things you can do, all of which are interesting to me in terms of a direction that I, and Red Gate, want to move. I don’t know if Azure works everywhere, but we are considering moving SQLServerCentral, or perhaps parts of it, to Azure, so this was a good chance for me to try out some new Azure stuff.

    I’ve messed with a few things in Azure, but mostly on the PaaS side. That interests me more, and I’ve done little with IaaS. I certainly haven’t really worked with IIS much in Azure. I decided to go through the VM setup, to create two IIS machines, load balanced on the same URL. I used this blog post with a cartoon and demo to run through the process.

    It was a bit more than 10 minutes, mostly because some of the allocation stuff in Azure took time, and the responsiveness from the VM in Azure was slow. From the time I connected to the time Server Manager popped up was over two minutes for each machine. Since I was going through some of the steps sequentially, that meant it was slow to get going.

    The video and the portal bring to light some of the issues of Azure. It’s a great tutorial and I was able to get the two machines load balancing IIS in 20 minutes (or less). It was surprised how quickly it went, but I also had to stop and think. The load balancing and cloud services are different now than they were when the post was written.

    I’m sure that’s the case with lots of Azure content. In some sense, this means that we will have lots of issues with people trying to learn how to use Azure as they’ll find content and information that is woefully out of date, sometimes quickly. I wonder if we need to think about having some code on blogs for Azure that marks the content as potentially out of date after it’s been out for 6 months.

    It’s a challenge to keep the content up to date, and luckily the changes weren’t too different in the portal.

    I am glad that I was able to get to IIS machines up and load balanced, delete them, and bring them back. That makes me think I may find some use for this Azure stuff, yet. I have a few projects in mind, including rebooting my personal site. Perhaps Azure will be the place I give it a go.