Voice of the DBA

Author: way0utwest

  • Bits Bound

    I'm excited about my first trip to SQLBits

    I can’t believe I’m driving to the airport again today for a trip out of the country. Given the troubles that I’ve typically had crossing the Atlantic, it seems crazy to me that I’m going to go for the second time this year. In my life, I’ve flown to Europe 9 times and each trip has always been a one-stop each way, yet I’ve never had less than 5 planes and had as many as seven. A few years ago I thought that would end as I flew to the UK and made it back to Chicago with three planes. I then proceeded to get on, and off, three more planes before the fourth managed to get me to Denver.

    This time I’m trying a new route, actually flying through Calgary. My one Canadian trip was smooth, so maybe I’ll have an easy trip over the SQL Bits 9: Query Across the Mersey. Simon Sabin and the rest of the organizers have invited me to come quite a few times and I finally committed this year. I’ve been wanting to attend the event, which many friends have greatly enjoyed. I’m looking forward to getting to the home of the Beatles, Liverpool and seeing Chris Testa-O’Neill’s band along with the Fab Beatles, entertaining everyone on Thursday night. Assuming I can get there in time.

    SQL Bits has a great format that I’d love to see duplicated in the US. They have a day of pre-cons called “Training Day“, which is packed this year withAndy Leonard (blog |@AndyLeonard) and Allen White (blog | @SQLRunr) from the US along with Maciej Pilecki, Mark S. Rasmussen, and more. It’s a great way to get a pre-con at a great price. That occurs on Thursday, with a paid training day on Friday where I and many other speakers will be presenting on various topics. Saturday is like the US SQL Saturday model, with a free day of training for anyone that can register and come.

    I love the SQL Saturdays, but I think this model would work in the US as well. I’m looking forward to seeing the event and then with Karla Landrum’s (@karlakay22) help, hopefully seeing an event like this in the US.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

  • Know when to hold ’em

    The SQLServerCentral party is always a great time

    It’s time for the annual SQLServerCental party at the PASS conference in Seattle again. It’s become an event that’s a lot of fun, and a great way for the SQL Server community to have some fun and get to know each other in a relaxed atmosphere. This year we’ve once again combined the party with the Exceptional DBA awards, and I’m honored to be there to celebrate noted SQLServerCentral author Jeff Moden as the winner.

    We have once again contracted for a casino themed party with various game tables around. We’ll call them the card game where you try to get twenty one, the competitive card game with a flop, river and turn, the roll-the-ball-around-the-circle-and-guess-the-number game, and probably that dice game as well. Have to be careful with the spam filters these days. 😉

    This year we’re selling tickets in advance for $20, or you can bring $30 to the door. We’ll have lots of prizes again, with me going through Best Buy and Think Geek to get a large variety of things to give away. I am happy to take suggestions for those items that you think would be fun gifts to take home.

    No skill is needed at the games as we’ll give prizes away randomly to people playing at the tables. Even if you have no idea what you’re doing, stick a few chips down,  introduce yourself to the player next to you and get some advice. You might learn something, and more importantly, you might make a friend.

    Come join us on Tuesday night for a great time. More details are in the party announcement.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

  • How Should We Pay People?

    It’s an interesting article on how to pay people from Dan Ariely at Business Week. It’s a look at some of the issues with paying for knowledge work, or work that isn’t well defined. The short version is that you don’t want to specify too tightly what you expect people to do, but then you have to motivate them to work in the best interests of the company.

    I think this is one of the fundamental problems in management today. We still have this mentality from the blue collar factory worker and piecemeal or easily measurable work items being applied by management to knowledge workers. It doesn’t work well, and somehow we think that the hours work in some way relate to the output.

    I blame lawyers. They tend to use this model, since they often bill by the hour. However the end result, the quality of that they produce, which is usually research, isn’t easily quantified in anything other than a win or loss. That often comes down to not only the soundness of the argument or the logic, but the charisma of the lawyer. That’s not even close to the way we do business in many other industries, especially technology.

  • Recovery Models

    In SQL Server we have three basic recovery models: full, bulk-logged, and simple. By default we find that most databases use the defaults, which mean that they are in the full recovery model.

    In that case, you need to be sure that you are performing log backups, otherwise the log will grow until it reaches it’s limits, or you run out of disk space on that drive. If the log cannot record SQL Server transactions, the database cannot accept any more transactions.

    The basics of recovery models are covered nicely in this article from Gail Shaw, which includes some common myths and misconceptions out there. However for the average person, the important thing is that you understand which recovery model to pick.

    You Need Point in Time Recovery

    Point in time recovery means recovery in between the full or differential backups. Quite a few DBAs will ask customers if they really need to recover to a point in time, and get the answer that they don’t, but that’s not often the right question to ask.

    Ask your clients if the database failed at 5:00pm today, and all the work done today was lost because you restored to last night’s backup at midnight, how would they feel?

    Sometimes they’re fine with the data loss, most times they aren’t. If you need to get back to a point in time between backups, make sure you use the full recovery model.

    You Can Reload the Database

    There are some databases, usually data warehouses, that can be rebuilt from other sources. If you take a backup of your database and then load data every day that rarely changes during the day, you might not need point in time recovery. In fact, many ETL processes are not designed for this anyway, and could not restart themselves in the middle of a load if you restored to the point in time when the database had an issue.

    In this case, use the Simple recovery model.

    You are space constrained with the log

    If you run index rebuilds, or large data loads and find yourself with a transaction log that grows very large, you might want to investigate the Bulk-logged recovery model. This model is more confusing, so I don’t want to give you a general rule here. If you think you might benefit from less logging, investigate the bulk-logged recovery model, practice restores with it and make sure you fully understand the implications of using it before you set a database in this mode.