Voice of the DBA

Author: way0utwest

  • The Mentoring Experiment is taking applications

    If you would like a mentor, we’ are taking applications at The Mentoring Experiment. We ran this last year and it went well. We’ve been slow to get another round going for a variety of reasons, but we’re finally moving forward.

    If you would like someone to help mentor you in your career, apply. We have many more mentors that volunteered their time this year, and there should be a better chance of getting matched.

    NOTE: This isn’t training. A mentor isn’t there to teach you Reporting Service, or Service Broker. They are available to listen and help guide you in making decisions and choices in your career and life.

    Apply today.

  • Stack Ranking

    stack monster
    Would you want to work in a place that might rank you relatively, rather than absolutely?

    Vanity Fair ran a piece awhile back about Microsoft and their tenure under Steve Ballmer. It’s no secret that Microsoft lost some of their dominance over the last decade and their fiscal performance has been less than outstanding. While they have built some great products in that time (XBOX, SQL Server, Windows 7), they’ve faltered and stalled on others, and have made their share of mistakes. Today I think many people see Microsoft as an important part of the tech world, but not necessarily a company that dominates any part of their industry.

    One of the interesting things in the piece was a note that there is a stack ranking system of reviewing people. It’s a brutal system that pits people against each other, with the idea that there is a distribution of performance. Each group will have a high performer, and a low performer (or more than one) and a number of people in the middle. No matter what the actual circumstances, that’s how people are graded.

    When I worked at Peoplesoft as a manager, we had a similar system. We graded people from 1-5, 5 being the highest. We had to have proof someone was worth a 1 or a 5, but we also couldn’t rank everyone as a 2, 3, or 4. We had to distribute our people. After I ranked my group and turned it in, our director had a “budget” of people ranked as 4s, and we had to argue with other managers to see which of our 4s would be downgraded to a 3.

    I thought that was crazy. Some people thrive in that environment, but some don’t. Many people want to go to work and do work that would be rated a 3 or 4. Companies need those people because there’s always a percentage of work that suits people that do 4, 3, or even 2 level work. This Friday, ignoring the merits of such a system, I wanted to ask how you feel.

    Would you like to work in a company that uses a stack ranking system?

    I know I wouldn’t. I’m competitive, but that type of system just isn’t for me. I prefer to get along with and work with others, not compete with them on a daily basis.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

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

  • Contained Databases – Server Setting Matters

    In doing some additional testing on contained databases, I decided to create a new database on a new test VM.

    CREATE DATABASE cdb1
 containment = PARTIAL
;

    To my surprise, I got this error:

    Msg 12824, Level 16, State 1, Line 1

    The sp_configure value ‘contained database authentication’ must be set to 1 in order to create

    a contained database.  You may need to use RECONFIGURE to set the value_in_use.

    I checked the server setting, and sure enough the instance property was set to 0 (false).

    At first you might think this shouldn’t matter, but imagine you go to attach a backup of a contained database to an instance that doesn’t have this enabled. However there are a few security and administrative concerns over contained databases. We have the password policies, the potential collision of user names, and more.

    The easy fix is to enable the instance level setting. That’s easily done with this code:

    -- Set advanced options
EXEC sp_configure 'show advanced options', 1;
GO
RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE;
GO
EXEC sp_configure 'contained database authentication', 1;
EXEC sp_configure 'show advanced options', 0;
GO
RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE;
GO

    What about restoring a contained database backup? Surely it will just come online without the contained authentication?

    I tried it, before running the script above, and I got this error:

    containedfail

    Clearly the instance level setting matters. It’s easy to change, either in script or the GUI. However if you use the GUI, please don’t click OK and save the changes. Use the script button, save that for your logging/documentation, and then run the script.

  • Send me your pictures

    If you got some with me at SQL in the City last week I London, or anytime in the last year, I’d love to have copies.

    Pictures are memories for me, and I treasure all the ones I have of my kids. However I don’t have a ton from work, and I’d like to have a few more. Drop a note to sjones at SQLServerCentral with the image.

    Thanks.