Voice of the DBA

Author: way0utwest

  • The Subtle Push to the Cloud

    With SQL Server 2014 released, there’s the temptation to upgrade for many DBAs. However the licensing costs and debatable improvements in the product will temper the DBA’s enthusiasm with the reality of the ROI seen by management. While reading about the licensing changes, I also saw this note from Tom LaRock, where he wrote about the features most of us aren’t using. It made me think about upgrades, and perhaps the strategy Microsoft is employing.

    As Tom mentioned, the features not being used are Enterprise Edition features. This prevents many of us from upgrading to use them because Enterprise Edition is so expensive. Actually, even Standard Edition is expansive these days, given the per-core licensing, and I suspect lots of companies with SQL Server 2008, 2005, even 2000 are debating whether or not the upgrade is really worth the cost.

    The piece also mentions that Azure is much less expensive in the short term, and you should consider it. Of course at some point the money you pay will be more than buying a license and a server, but that assumes you run them for the same length of time. You’ll likely upgrade at some point, and if you upgrade both hardware and software, the cloud starts to look more attractive.

    It’s not simple to move into the cloud, nor is it appropriate for some applications, but it does seem that Microsoft would prefer to have most companies running in Azure, on a single platform they run, they patch, and they support. Many companies might prefer the same thing, though I do worry that we might find the on-premises version of many products becoming second class citizens. Vendors will spend less on development and support if too many customers move to the cloud.

    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. feed

    The Voice of the DBA podcast features music by Everyday Jones. No relation, but I stumbled on to them and really like the music. Support this great duo at www.everydayjones.com.

  • Back to Work

    After surgery Fri am, I’ve been mostly taking it easy, but now it’s back to work. Got kids to school and at the standing desk. Overall I feel good and can walk fairly normal. Other than this big brace on my leg that slows me down and makes walking funny.

    Doing well and looking forward to getting back to full strength, and also being able to travel to events again Smile

  • The Danger of Algorithms

    There is a report that came out recently that shows how you can predict Social  Security numbers, an important piece of identity information in the US. This, according to this C|Net article, could result in massive fraud taking place if someone’s birthday is disclosed.

    So many sites want to get this piece of information from you, often to ping you on your birthday or give you some gift. I’ve always been wary, however, and usually put in April 1 instead of my real birthday. It makes for lots of birthday wishes on that day, but that’s OK. I appreciate the thoughts, even if they are a few months off.

    This does highlight the danger of using an algorithm to generate data. Unfortunately there are plenty of people out there that will maliciously find ways to mis-use data, and if they can guess how you generated the data, they can extrapolate that out to calculate what other data might exist in your system. I know most people that need to generate codes often don’t spend a lot of time ensuring they’ve picked a good method from a security point of view.

    The key here is to keep pieces of information somehow separate, to make it more difficult for a criminal of some sort to perform the extrapolation. That gets harder and harder to do, primarily because of the job many of us do. We gather data into SQL Server and other platforms, and make it easy to put this data together.

    As with many of the problems I see in today’s world, I don’t have a perfect solution to this problem. However I think that many of us handle data insecurely, often comparing actual values when a hash, or digital signature might work instead. I know some of that is because we don’t have great tools for working with digital signatures, but also because it’s a complex process.

    Credit card companies, banks, and other institutions often have complex rules for how they handle and process data. I think this more of their secure methods of handling data should be published and taught so that other companies can better learn how to build more secure applications.

    Steve Jones

  • The Reading Poll

    I’ve written and blogged quite a bit about how much I like reading, and specifically my experiences with the Kindle and e-readers. I started with “Should I Buy a Kindle?” last year, and have continued to update people with my experiences, giving you some thoughts on what I’ve thought about the entire e-reading experience.

    In the past week there have been a few very interesting things happen. First there was the release of a Barnes & Noble based e-reader, which is available on multiple devices (Blackberry, Mac, iPhone, PC) and has a large inventory of books available for it. I’ve tried the reader on the PC, iPhone, and Blackberry, with different experiences on each (blogs coming on the other devices). It’s interesting, and it definitely gives me a choice.

    As I’ve been discussing it with my wife, however, she has different perspectives. She tolerates the Kindle, but doesn’t like the iPhone/Blackberry experience, and says she just wouldn’t read that way. But she also doesn’t read that much in terms of books, maybe 5 or so a year.

    The other big news this past week was Amazon removing content from users’ Kindle devices because of a copyright issue. Apparently a self-service application was used by a publisher to upload George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm to the Amazon system, where it was sold to some people. When Amazon was informed that this publisher did not have rights to sell the book, they removed it from their system, removed it from users’ Kindles, and refunded the sales price. However they didn’t explain why the content was removed.

    So for this Friday’s poll, I wanted to take the temperature from people about a few issues. Actually I have two polls:

    How many books do you read a year? (technical and non-technical)

    How much of a danger to individual rights is an online, wired platform?

    What I’m asking in the first question is to get an idea of how much the audience reads. I know it’s not for everyone, and while I read a lot, it’s mostly fiction. It’s a release, enjoyment factor for me. My total count was about 50, though I blew by that with the Kindle. That device enabled me to read more, and so I was probably on pace for about 70 books with the Kindle. That was a combination of fiction and non-fiction, business type books. I typically in the last few years have only read 3-4 technical books  a year on top of that (I know, shame on me).

    The second question is harder, but I’m wondering how people feel  about sales, ownership, and licensing. It’s easy to look at just music, or reading, but I worry about the broader picture, including software. Artists/publishers/creators should be paid for their work. I think it’s only fair, but I also think that consumers of works have rights as well. We don’t just buy a “license” to the software, book, or movie. If we do, it’s a perpetual license since I don’t think that Microsoft can stop me from running Windows 95 in 2040 just because they don’t support it or want me to upgrade. Likewise I’m not sure that Disney can ever prevent me from watching a VHS tape of Toy Story in 50 years (assuming I have a VCR).

    But that’s what Amazon did, and it’s absolutely a violation of the spirit of business as well as (from what I see) a violation of their terms of service. This has been an issue with TiVO/Dish Network,  and it will continue to be an issue in other cases as there is a connection between the platform and a retailer. My view is that connection is what is best about the Kindle, but it apparently is also the worst thing. If Amazon, or a court, can force actions through this link, it feels like a fundamental violation of the 4th Amendment (in the case of a court).

    Or is it? If you purchased a stolen car (or other good), I think you would have to return the goods. Indeed, as I’ve searched some legal precedents, it appears that’s the case. An old English law posting on Stolen Goods says that when the thief is convicted, the goods must be returned to the original owner. That’s if you were not aware the goods were stolen; if you were, you have violated the law.

    As much as it stinks, if you traffic in stolen goods, or perhaps criminal goods is a better term, you lose out on your purchase price unless you seek restitution from the party who sold the item to you. It seems as though the problems are with digital goods since there doesn’t seem to be a loss of goods from the original owner. There also is a huge distribution channel problem in that one copy of “illegal bits” can be sold to thousands of people.

    Personally I believe that 1984 was chosen specifically because of the topic and to test what might happen. And in my opinion, Amazon failed the test, not because this is not what might have been ordered, but because of the way it was handled. Without a conviction, there is no “search and seizure” allowed. Stolen goods aren’t that until a thief is convicted, or in this case, a copyright violator is determined by a court. And without informing consumers of the reasoning, it feels as though Amazon has violated their trust.

    Steve Jones

    Podcast: http://m.podshow.com/media/16930/episodes/166748/sqlservercentralmp3-166748-07-23-2009.mp3