Voice of the DBA

Author: way0utwest

  • Leaving Some Headroom

    Max Headroom
    You want to leave some headroom on your server, though perhaps not this kind of headroom.

    I was reading this piece on scaling Dropbox and something caught my eye. It’s a very interesting read, especially if you deal with scaling, and I’d encourage everyone that works with technology to read it. The one thing that really caught my eye, however, was the idea of running with extra load. In the piece, the author notes that they had a process running on their systems that consumed memory and CPU. If they ever reached their limit on the systems, they could stop the process, giving them a little more horsepower for the application.

    That’s interesting. It’s a take on similar techniques that we used on our SQL Servers in the past. We could keep a few 1GB files (in the days of 50GB disks) on each logical drive. If the drive somehow filled up, we could delete the file, giving us a little more space.

    Steve, that’s silly. You’d still need the same amount of space, so why does this help? It helps because it buys you time. If a process fills your log file, which fills the disk, the database stops. If you kill the process, and then delete the file, you’ve got space to clear your log, and keep your system running while you find out what went wrong. That’s the idea of artificial headroom. It allows you more time to respond in a crisis.

    I’m not sure how I’d want this to work on my SQL Servers. After all, any load I placed on them wouldn’t necessarily just occupy CPU. It would also impact the buffer pool, as the type of process I chose would influence what would stay (or go) in that bit of memory. However the idea of limiting my system slightly, maybe 5%, in a growth situation is interesting.

    At the very least it might appease my users while I get a purchase order for more resources approved.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

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

  • 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.