Voice of the DBA

Author: way0utwest

  • Failure Lessons

    orca
    Orca was a high profile software failure this year.

    I really wish that we would see detailed analysis of failed systems, if for no other reasons than to avoid repeating the same mistakes in the future. I’d hope that technical people that were engaged in building systems that didn’t work well would share their experiences, whether from development, deployment, administration, or even operations. I ran across a piece on the lessons of Orca, the web application that Mitt Romney’s campaign used, or tried to use, to manage their operations.

    It seems that there were a number of problems with this system, which is almost stunning. I’d think this is a well known process that includes a number of pieces of technology that are built into so many systems these days. Integration is never smooth, and the short time frame of an election campaigns doesn’t leave a lot of time for testing, much of which apparently didn’t get completed. The article talks about many of the same things that I’ve seen mentioned in the past when applications don’t work as expected. A lack of training, a dearth of hardware, tooling that doesn’t work, all of these have been reported for years in many software engineering journals and articles.

    Perhaps more analysis won’t help. I doubt that even a high profile failure would convince the manager of any internal software development project to spend more resources or lengthen their time line to prevent a problem with an application. Like most developers, managers are eternal optimists when it comes to software being completed, regardless of their past experience. They never seem to learn that pushing for faster releases, cutting features, and limiting testing will showcase the end product poorly for the customer.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

    We publish three versions of the podcast each day for you to enjoy.

  • The Future of DBAs

    truck data center
    Is this the future of many data centers?

    At SQL Saturday #169 in Denver I sat in on a panel that talked about cloud computing. There was a consultant, a customer, and a Microsoft representative that give different perspectives on what their experiences were with Windows Azure. It was an interesting talk and the more I learn about the cloud, the more potential situations where I think it applies. It’s not for everyone, but there are a lot of places where it can work, and I would encourage you to learn more about cloud services and cloud computing.

    One really interesting question was asked. Do you know the skills needed for modern Microsoft data centers? Truck driver. A truck driver can drop off a shipping container with servers pre-configured inside and just plug it in to power and network, often with no cooling needed. A fenced in parking lot, open to the atmosphere, makes a nice, inexpensive, low maintenance data center.

    That’s simplified, but it has interesting implications for networking, hardware, and system administrators, but what does that mean for DBAs? How will our jobs change if these shipping containers run SQL Server services on Azure or AWS? It’s a good question, and one that I know worries many people that manage SQL Servers.

    On one hand our jobs don’t change. We still need to manage the data, enforce quality, design tables and manage indexes. We must ensure the data is available, intact, accessible by clients. We import, export, and even recover it at times. These are all the core skills of a DBA. On the other hand, we have new challenges to manage. Our recovery process will change. We will need to learn how to scale out our data and applications. We will need to better set expectations for performance, and perhaps more closely expand and contract the resources we use to match the demand we receive. In order to do that, we’ll also have to better understand the financial costing models that vendors provide, along with gathering more knowledge on the actual value our organization receives from more, or fewer, resources.

    The idea of remote computing, whether as hosted VMs or a platform that provides database services, is going to be a part of many of our careers. We might as well embrace it, understand it, and find a way to fit in.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

    We publish three versions of the podcast each day for you to enjoy.

  • The Modern Resume at the PASS Professional Development VC

    I gave the Modern Resume/Branding presentation today for the PASS Professional Development Virtual Chapter. It was recorded and if you are a PASS member, you can access it.

    I’ve also updated the slide deck and it’s available here: BrandingDreamJob – v16.ppt

  • Too Much Data

    Big Data is getting lots of attention. Will that mean more resources for managing it.

    Many data professionals these days feel like they are working with too much data. Queries run slow, storage is constantly a concern, and our hardware is outgrown on a regular basis by the sheer amount of data that we need to manage. It’s a good thing that “Big Data” is in the news since it focuses more attention on the issues of data management and growth in our systems.

    Some companies are taking the idea of managing their data more seriously. Boeing and Nike are talked about in this piece about coping with large amounts of data. With the vast amount of growth in the data stores these two companies work with, they had to find ways to ensure that business people could effectively find the information they needed in a sea of data.

    It’s an interesting read and one that you might pass on to your management. The solutions aren’t new and innovative; they’re back to basics ideas. Have a central warehouse, use a data strategy that includes strong models and enforces data quality. Integrate your systems to allow a better view of your entire enterprise. These are the ideas that many data professionals preach, but are rarely found in many companies.

    Sometimes a new perspective helps, and articles like the one above can help you convince managers of the need to raise your data quality and enforce some standards.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

    We publish three versions of the podcast each day for you to enjoy.