Voice of the DBA

Author: way0utwest

  • Sensor Data

    Most of us don’t deal with sensors in our jobs. Or do we? So many devices are in use these days, with a wide variety of inputs that many of us might not realize that applications might be capturing some of this data, which is more akin to sensor data than manually entered data. I would suspect that the meta data might vastly exceed the amount of data entered in text boxes in many of our databases in the future. It might be location, time, action, event, or some other data that we store, manage, and link to data that users choose to submit.

    The Black Hat conference took place recently and one of the sessions talks about the proliferation of cheap sensors that could be used to potentially track individuals without their knowledge. That’s an interesting use of hacking skills, cheap technology, visualizations, and of course, lots of data. While there are plenty of scary privacy implications here, especially for criminal activity, I could see other uses as well.

    Imagine that you work in a retail environment? You might want to know how people move around your store, potentially in order to redesign your store. What about industrial centers? Additional data about parts flowing has resulted in more efficient workflow, but with even more sensors and data, you might find new ways to improve productivity. UPS and FedEx have used technology to vastly increase their efficiency; how many other companies could take advantage of sensor data and find new ways to run their businesses.

    I expect to see more and more data being collected in all sorts of organizations (commercial, government, and others) as more sensors and other hardware become inexpensive. Just as the decline in the cost of computers has enabled almost every organization to take advantage of their capabilities, I expect the new types of sensor data will allow data professionals new opportunities. All the additional data gives us the chance to perform all types of analysis, data mining, and more. It’s a good time to be working in the data field, with new opportunities appearing every day.

    Steve Jones

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  • Labor Day 2013

    It’s a holiday in the US today. It’s Labor Day, and many in the US have a break. With a holiday late last week, this turns into a 5 day weekend for me. That’s unusual for me as I struggle to take time off. I enjoy my job, and it seems that I have no shortage of tasks I can find during the week. I’m trying to do better. Vacation is important, and I’m hoping to fit in more across the next few months.

    Most of us work as labor for some enterprise. Whether it’s an employer or our own business, we work to earn an income, support our families and, hopefully, find some sense of purpose in our efforts.

    Work is hard, and every job is work at some point, but I hope you enjoy your employment more days than you don’t, especially the work in technology. The tools, capabilities and amazing things we can do in the digital world are very exciting.

    I’ve got a blooper real for the podcast that I hope you enjoy today if you’re reading the newsletter. For those of you around the world, I know many of you may be working today, but I hope you have your own holiday at some point during the year that recognizes the efforts you put in.

    Bloopers

    Watch in WMV or MP4 formats.

  • Great IT Shops

    This was originally published on Jan 11, 2009.

    How many of you think you work for a great company? Hands down. Now how many of you think you have a great IT department? Would you recommend it to a friend?

    That’s a great test for me if you work for a great company, if you’d recommend your company to a friend as a place to work. If not, then why not? Recently I found this article on the 10 signs of a great IT shop, and it got me thinking about some of my past employers. I think I’ve been fortunate to work for one great IT department in my career and a few more that were not so hot.

    I’ll note that people always ask me what it’s like to work for Red Gate Software, my current employers and do I like them. I do, but I’m like 5,000 miles away so I don’t get to experience much of the company. So I can’t really judge them as an IT shop to work for, especially since I’m not in IT anymore!

    There was one company I worked for that was amazing, and it was the largest IT department that I was a part of. Almost everyone liked the company, liked their jobs, and really worked together well. At times it felt a little surreal to me that this large group of people, literally hundreds in IT, were working together. Sure there was bickering and people that didn’t get along, but they were the exception, not the rule.

    This is opposed to a few other places I’ve worked where bickering and infighting were the rule. Or a few jobs I’ve had where IT wasn’t really recognized as an extremely valuable part of the company, despite the fact that it was in a few cases. I think that is not as common these days as we incorporate more and more technology into businesses, but 10 or 20 years ago IT was not seen as valuable, though it might have been important.

    I don’t necessarily agree with all the signs listed in the article, but I do think that there are few things you need to do to build an IT group that people want to work for, that they’ll go above and beyond for, and that they’ll stick with you over time. A career path is the first thing and it is important, as is the ability to keep people moving on those paths. That might include training, self study, etc, but you have to show a commitment to your people. I’d also say that the company should take advantage of IT as a strategic part of the business and use to gain competitive advantages. And recognize IT when it does so.

    So do you work in a great IT shop?

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

    Everyday Jones

    The podcast feeds are now available atsqlservercentral.mevio.comto get better bandwidth and maybe a little more exposure :). Comments are definitely appreciated and wanted, and you can get feeds from there.

    Overall RSS Feed:  or now on iTunes! 

    Today’s 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.

  • The Value of Your Time

    Today’s editorial was originally published on Feb18, 2009. It is being re-published as Steve is on vacation.

    I was talking with a friend the other day that’s in sales and he was working with a client on some new software upgrade. This is a long term relationship and my friend manages the client’s use of his company’s products, which are custom software programs. There was a mismatch of expectations in the presentation of a new product and the client wanted my friend on site for a day right away. So my friend sat around for a few hours waiting for approval to book travel and fly across the country for a two day trip to the client’s site. Since this was a trip being made with less than seven days notice, the CEO had to approve the travel.

    The CEO of a 3,000+ person company had to approve a $1,500-2,000 trip for a sale worth tens of millions of dollars in revenue.

    Now I might be exaggerating a bit how silly this seems because who knows how many trips get asked for each week. And having a policy around travel is sensible since people might abuse the company a bit in trips. But should the CEO be doing this? How much time and money is wasted by having the CEO look at these? Either he spends time on them, which is an incredibly wasteful use of time for someone that should be strategically thinking about running the business at a macro, not micro, level. Or he rubber stamps them, in which case he’s trusting his subordinates to do their due diligence. In which case he shouldn’t rubber stamp the approval; let the subordinates handle the decision making.

    As a DBA, I’ve always been relatively well paid in most companies. Not $365k a year well paid, but making more money than a good portion of the IT staff. And I’ve always recognized that there are things I could do that waste the company’s money, and my time, if I’m doing them. You wouldn’t want me to take a part printers to figure out why paper is jamming any more than you’d want me to empty the trash cans every night as part of my daily work. You want me tuning SQL Servers, testing upgrades, writing code and more. That’s not to say I can’t refill a printer with paper, make coffee, or help someone solve a permissions problem, but it shouldn’t be something I do on a regular basis.

    Each of us provides value to our companies, and while we should be willing to pitch in and help with most any job, we also should recognize that we are most efficient if we do those things that are the best use of our time.

    Trust your people to do their jobs, and deal with things later if they don’t, but trust them up front.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

    Everyday Jones

    The podcast feeds are now available atsqlservercentral.mevio.comto get better bandwidth and maybe a little more exposure :). Comments are definitely appreciated and wanted, and you can get feeds from there.

    Overall RSS Feed:  or now on iTunes! 

    Today’s 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.