Voice of the DBA

Author: way0utwest

Sabbatical Day 23–Another Bust

My company, Red Gate software, has given me a 6 week sabbatical. I’m documenting the time with all the posts under a tag if you want to follow along.

I had lots of plans for Monday. However things didn’t go my way. Some family matters delayed me getting started, and after Pilates, I was exhausted. Not from class, but I think from working in the sun all day Saturday and Sunday. I took a nap, and then couldn’t really concentrate, so I decided not to do much. I started to mark things, but gave up, covered the boards, and knocked off for the day.

I had some time with the kids, some family business, but mostly a relaxing day.

June 30, 2014
Sabbatical Day 22–More Catch Up

My company, Red Gate software, has given me a 6 week sabbatical. I’m documenting the time with all the posts under a tag if you want to follow along.

Not a productive week on the sabbatical, at least in terms of what I wanted to accomplish. This coming week is semi-busy with volunteering on Wed and Thur as well as a holiday Fri, so I decided to catch up this weekend.

Saturday was mostly working in the garage, cleaning the shop, building some small drawers for pieces and parts, and organizing a touch more. It was windy outside, so I didn’t want to joint and plane wood.

Sunday was much better. It was calm, and with a cup of coffee, I set up the jointer to square two sides of my new 2x4s and then planed them to thickness.

With the wood ready, I put it on the jig and cut it down to size. Once I was done, I tried to flip the pieces over to see if I could trim them again to give me spares, but they were too small.

It was hot, and I was ready to break, but I decided to see how things look. I grabbed all 8 pieces and laid them out on the bench. The jig is on the left, the flagpole on the right. Looks pretty good.

As you can see, the top is four small pieces.

The bottom, as expected, is four larger sizes, with more space.

Overall, things look pretty good. The two things that have me slightly worried. The first is that the top board, the shorter of a 2×6, is slightly twisted. It doesn’t lay flat with the other boards. I can clamp it down, so it’s probably OK overall. I think I’ll try it and see.

The other worrisome thing is that two of the joints, one on a 2×4 and one on a 2×6 are only about 6” apart. The directions called for all joints to be at least a foot apart, but in this case they aren’t. Not sure if it’s a big deal yet. Stability is an issue, but once it’s glued to other pieces, I’m guessing it will bear up well.

Worst case in both situations is that I need to recut wood. I won’t take the jig down for now, and if I need to, I think I can build another one quicker.

Tomorrow I’ll cut biscuit slots (a few were marked today) and glue up the sides. I need to cut some stands to raise the pole up, but I think that should be fairly quick. If that goes well, I’ll buy a large router bit tomorrow night and work on rounding Tuesday.

June 29, 2014
Sabbatical–Day 21–Volunteering

My company, Red Gate software, has given me a 6 week sabbatical. I’m documenting the time with all the posts under a tag if you want to follow along.

Today is another volunteer day with habitat. This time back at the ReStore. However I wasn’t feeling good. As I drove over there, I was fatigued, tired, and sipping coffee in the parking lot before they opened, I could have gone to sleep. However I got myself up and walked in.

I worried about trying to get through the day, letting them down, etc., but it went OK. I was the only volunteer, working with a guy in the back processing donations and putting things out on the floor. Also a touch of loading purchases for customers.

I took hinges off doors and wrestled with a sink for a long time, trying to remove the faucets and drains. I worked slow, chatted with employees, and managed to get through a long day. I left at 2 feeling drained and hungry.

I stopped for food and then at Harbor Freight where I bought 12 more clamps, with every intention of getting the flagpole glued next week. I felt slightly better, but I got home, lay down, and slept for two hours.

Not as much done as I’d planned, but fatigue does that. I’m sure some people think I’m doing this sabbatical thing wrong, but hard to tell. Every day this week I was up before 7, except Tues.

Andy Warren asked me if the time has been worth it and I don’t quite know how to answer that. Certainly it’s more relaxing and I get the chance to tackle things I wouldn’t have done before. I’ve gained some confidence with wood working and volunteered quite a bit more than I have in the past. I don’t know how things will feel when I get back to work, but I think I need to evaluate the end of this time and probably a few weeks later.

June 28, 2014
Lockdown or Let Them Free

This piece was originally published on Sept 21, 2009. It is being re-run as Steve is away on sabbatical/

I ran into this blog post about IT v other workers. The post is in response to an article in Slate about workers being oppressed by their IT departments. They’re both relatively long reads, but the summary is that a writer at Slate thinks that the technology departments are too restrictive and unnecessarily hindering workers. The blog rebuts that point with the notion that many technology workers don’t understand the complexity of their systems and there are valid reasons for not allowing workers to have free choice in what applications they install.

Having been in a number of technology departments, from small to large, I can say that I see both sides. On one hand technology departments spend a lot of time and money cleaning up mistakes and problems from users. On the other hand, new applications and enhancements can often increase the efficiency or effectiveness of workers that find a new way to do their jobs.

The problem in both cases is a few extremes are being chosen to represent both sides. Most users don’t require lots of attention from IT for their machines. And most IT solutions punish everyone for the problems that a few people provide.

I think that as DBAs we sometimes start to feel this way about developers. We classify them all as problems and give them no rights, or we think that every person must have all rights to all instances. This extreme set of solutions isn’t practical, or effective, for most organizations. As much as I might seem to hate developers and make fun of them in these editorials, I recognize that there are many talented programmers and quite a few that know more about SQL Server than I do.

The best way to handle rights and access is to selectively apply permissions to individuals, matching up their skills with their rights. If a user has problems creating indexes or adding tables, remove those rights. If they are a model DBA, then perhaps they deserve sysadmin rights. You can either loosely apply security and then tighten it up or lightly apply it and loosen it as people prove themselves.

Let me say that I still highly recommend the use of roles for the actual implementation of permissions, but don’t view security as a set it and forget it. You should re-evaluate it periodically, and that would include the permissions you give to your co-workers.

Steve Jones

June 27, 2014