Voice of the DBA

Author: way0utwest

  • Sacramento SQL Saturday Here I Come

    Packing for SQL Saturday #144 in Sacramento, CO. Dan Hess, one of the organizers, asked me last November at the PASS Summit if I’d come. I told him I’d try, and the scheduling worked out. As soon as I was sure that weekend was free, I submitted sessions and booked my flight. I’m only doing one session, which is nice. I’ve been booked for 3 many times, which makes for a busy day, and less people I get to meet.

    I’m doing my encryption talk at 8:30 in the morning, so come early if you want to know what options there are for encryption in SQL Server. I’ve done this one a few times and it’s always a fun one, getting people to understand the basics of encryption.

    That’s all I’ll have time for on this trip. It’s a quick one for me, and I have an early flight to get back home for baseball and a kid commitment on Sunday.

    If you’ll be in Sacramento, come on by. If you’re attending, please stop me and say hi.

     

     

     

  • A Really Good Job

    Kilt Day
    We have the best jobs in the world, but you can find a really good job if you work at it.

    I write a decent amount about career topics. In the discussions for these pieces, all too often I see comments from people that they aren’t happy with their job. They have a bad boss (which is really bad), or they aren’t challenged. They have long hours, low pay, or both. It’s sad, but I know how they feel. I’ve had some bad jobs in my life, jobs that I was forced to keep doing until I could find another one.

    I do try to get people to think about looking for other jobs, and I think there are great ones out there. I’m not the only one. Brent Ozar had a post on how you might find your first good job, that of an evangelist. It’s good advice, and I like the analogies he uses, but the key takeaway from his post is the people that get really good jobs work for them.

    They don’t study SQL Server to be the best MCM in the world. They don’t work 100 hours a week at their current job to impress future bosses. They take charge of their lives. They make a plan, perhaps a Dan Plan, and they set goals and work towards them. They make methodical progress over time. My wife and I made a plan for her, and it took years to get to the point where she could quit, but we got there, and she’s happier than she’s ever been.

    You don’t have to want to be an evangelist like Grant Fritchey or myself. You don’t have to want to even become an expert in your field. But whatever you want to do, it’s up to you to get there. Whatever a “good” job is for you, I’d urge you to set your sights on making that a reality.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

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

  • DevConnections – Fall 2012

    This fall is the DevConnections SQL Server Connections conference in Las Vegas again. It’s at the Bellagio, setting for one of my favorite movies, Ocean’s 11. It’s a smaller conference this time, and SQLServerCentral only has 4 slots for the event. Both Grant Fritchey and myself will be speaking on the Monday. At least I think we will. The schedule isn’t out, but that’s what I was told.

    I haven’t decided, but I’d like to try for a tweetup/meetup one night there, perhaps in front of the famous fountains. It would be neat to see a few SQL Server people at the spot shown at the end of the movie.

    bellagio10

    In any case, I’m heading back to Las Vegas. I enjoy visiting, and am looking forward to wandering around a bit.

    I’ve also got a lot of work to do. I have two sessions, one on binary data search in SQL Server, using the Integrated Full Text Search, and another on Policy Based Management. Both interesting topics to me, and areas where I’ve done some work, but I have to dig in over the next month or two and build a couple great presentations.

    If there is anything you want to learn about these topics, let me know. I haven’t quite decided where I’m going to focus, other than what’s in the abstracts. I have some room to speak in a few areas, but I’ve learned time goes away quickly when you’re presenting, so I need to be sure I’m focused.

    Hopefully I’ll meet some of you at the event. SQL Server Connections is a neat conference, one where you have the chance to learn a lot in a bunch of different areas. With 8 other conferences co-located, I always find a few sessions outside the SQL world that I find very interesting. A lot of the private cloud, SVVM, and related topics I’ve seen talked about recently were things I saw at the last Connections event in March. I expect there will be a lot of Windows 2012 stuff in the fall, just in time for you to plan for the 2013 budgets.

    Check out the event, and think about joining me in Las Vegas. It’s a good place for an event, easy to get to, and there are lots of activities to join in outside of the conference.

  • Leveling the Field

    Level Playing Field
    Cloud computing can level the field between large and small businesses

    I like small companies. If I had my choice, I’d prefer to work in a small company rather than a large one. I get to know more people, there’s less friction to getting things done, people can make decisions, and I get to do more cool stuff. My budget is smaller, but creativity is often encouraged when solving problems. As I read about some of the cool stuff that startups are doing, it reminds me of a few places I’ve worked.

    One of the challenges with small companies and their software has always been cost. A lot of companies look to Open Source products to cut down on their investments for this reason. However if there weren’t such a high price to the software, I think many companies would go with the “brands” of software that many of us work with every day.

    I remember working for a small company and being in charge of rewriting their inventory and sales system. As we were preparing to program the system, an SAP sales rep called our company and made a pitch to the owner. He was impressed and we spent a few weeks looking at SAP. We knew we couldn’t afford the full SAP software, much less purchasing the multiple servers it would take to run it, but SAP had just released a cut-down version of their software, running on one server, for small businesses. We didn’t buy it then, and I’m glad because we had a unique business model that really benefited from custom programming.

    These days all sorts of companies are looking to get started in new areas, or trying new ideas. Many of them don’t necessarily want to make large IT investments. It’s not only hardware and software, but also the IT expertise to manage the systems. If I were starting a business, or even working with a small business as a developer, I’d seriously consider cloud services. The breadth of offerings and features, the low investment cost, and lack of administration needed really level the playing field between what a small company and a large one can do with technology.

    There are opportunities here. If you’re looking to work with a small business, or start one of your own, look at cloud offerings. You might be surprised what you can get for very little initial investment.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

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