From the other side of the world, I had a guest at the ranch today.
Pinal Dave, a friend from India, sent me an email that he’d unexpectedly come to Denver this week. He had some time, so I invited him out to the ranch today for a few hours to sit and chat, see the horses, and spend some time.
We had a good time, and snapped a quick photo before he headed back to his hotel, and likely work knowing him.
I really enjoy the conversations I get to have with other successful and passionate people. They are some of the most interesting, and helpful, times I have in my career. This was definitely one of them.
When I started working with SQL Server I got bit in the rear one day while I was testing backups. I was in the process of making a quick backup before I deployed some changes. I think this was in the Enterprise Manager days of SQL 2000, but it could have been v6.5. In any case, I had a dialog similar to this one that I’ve shown in Management Studio. For simplicity I’ve recreated this with AdventureWorks:
No biggie, right? I click add, and enter my new file for the backup:
I accept this, and highlight me new file and click “OK” to do the backup. That will work, won’t it?
Actually it won’t. or rather, it will but not in the way I expect.
What this will do is create a striped backup (search in this article for “striped). I will have my data in a backup, but I will need both of these files in order to do a restore as each will only have half my data.
It’s a rookie mistake, one that’s not possible with a script, which is why you should backup with scripts, not the GUI.
However if you notice this, delete all the files, add yours back, and make a full backup right away. Chances are that you might have broken your recovery chain. And make sure you let everyone know this is not what you want to encounter.
Laptops are being stolen with important data on them. Unencrypted.
This editorial was originally published on Jun 6, 2006. Steve is traveling in the UK this week and we are reprinting a few pieces.
Or is it a sign of the times and something that we’ll have in the news on a regular basis for the next few years? Another laptop theft with data, this time from Hotels.com. It was actually an Ernst & Young laptop, the firm that audits hotels.com, but still.
This makes me feel silly for complaining about JD Edwards laptops and the required Pointsec encryption we had to put on every laptop. I didn’t like it at the time, but it wasn’t a horrible intrusion and these days I think a necessary one.
With all of the hype on identity theft, data privacy, and portable computers, I cannot believe that every company that allows any data to go outside of their physical office, whether on a backup tape or a laptop, doesn’t require encryption or some type of protection. At least do something to protect it. Most thefts are random and the thief probably wasn’t looking for credit card data, so a simple password might protect the data in most cases.
If governments want to do something about identity theft and privacy, pass that law. Force everyone to encrypt their data and us in IT to come up with good ways to protect it. I didn’t like encrypting backups with Litespeed, the only choice a few years ago, but it was worth it to protect backup tapes. Now with more choices at very reasonable prices, and MSDE/SQL Express able to use them, every database that contains individual data, and especially financial data, should have its backups encrypted.
Offshoring has been used in many industries, including technology
This editorial was originally published on May 3, 2006. Steve is traveling in the UK this week and we are reprinting older pieces.
It seems like career week in the editorial department, but I found a bunch of articles recently on careers. According to the Department of Labor employees whose jobs are outsourced should be treated the same as laid off workers. Maybe we shouldn’t be helping factory workers if their industry moves, though I think I’d argue that point, but if we treat the guy rolling steel or sewing fabric this way, why not software developers?
Losing your job just stinks. I’ve had it happen and it’s a horrible feeling and really can impact your family, emotionally and financially. As the economy moves more globally, corporations increasingly look for ways to become more competitive. The price of moving goods, once way to keep things slightly more level, has fallen so low in the software business that on straight a dollar comparison, everything should move to India or any other country where the wages are lower.
But it’s not that simple. As many companies have learned, the savings have costs that are not worth it.
I think providing more benefits for the relatively few people that get outsources is a good thing. It helps to keep the economy going here because those people have assistance to keep buying food, paying their rent, keeping their car, etc. All things that benefit this country locally.
However if you are out of work for over a year in the IT field. Perhaps you should change the type of job you are looking for or move to a new field.
Voice of the DBA 