Voice of the DBA

Author: way0utwest

  • Jobs for Data Scientists

    This is the trend line we like to see for database jobs

    I wrote about data scientists while back, which seems to be a field that involves the analysis of large amounts of data and the tools involved in this work. The definition of this area is a little nebulous, but that hasn’t stopped companies from looking for people to work in this area. There are jobs for data scientists, and perhaps for interesting, there seems to be more and more jobs for people to work with “big data”.

    This article shows a huge trend up in the “big data” keywords in job listings. That makes sense as I think the data growth has far outpaced the ability of tools to work with large datasets. Excel had a problem with large amounts of data until recently, and most of the other tools used are either very expensive or home grown.

    Many of the people subscribing to this newsletter are technical people, those that work to form the computer into a tool that someone else can use to do their job. It’s an interesting job, and one I hope you enjoy, but there are some of you out there that would like to do more with data than just find ways to help others query that data. Perhaps a data scientist is a job that you would like to move into at some point.

    This is an area that I suspect many companies will want to focus more efforts on in the future, and I think that being a DBA who knows how to query data and find patterns gives you a head start on moving into a position that can be challenging, fun, and perhaps most importantly, without much after hours work.

    If you like statistics, patterns, and helping your company actually make use of the information in data, perhaps a data scientist might be the position for you.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

  • For your CIO: Building Technical Leaders

    I might send this to a VP or CIO: Global CIO: A Framework For Developing Technical Leaders. It’s an article that talks about building senior technical leaders in your company, which I think is important if you view your Information Technology department as strategic.

    That also means thinking about retention, and building an atmosphere where people want to work. That doesn’t mean you can’t have layoffs or need to keep every person, but management does have to show competent and hard working technical people that they are valuable. It should also involve some way to balance the disparate needs of ambitious people that you want to retain and those average employees that want a secure job and are willing to do the average jobs.

    It also involves keeping a career path for technical people that doesn’t lead to management. Plenty of smart technical people want to keep growing, so give them a way to do so.

  • The Impact of Outages

    This is not what any of your clients want to see. So prepare for issues

    Are you going to start seeing more pressure for outages in applications? I suspect many outages are caused more by application issues than database ones, but those two are becoming very tightly linked as we look to more rapidly deploy features and enhancements in our applications, which often include database changes

    This outage from United shows that there can be a huge impact, not only financially, but also an inconvenience to clients and potential lost future business. A company might struggle to with future business after a large outage, especially when there are so many other choices easily available to consumers across the Internet.

    That brings to mind a very interesting problem as companies grow and look to build scalable systems. Large groups of servers require some level of standardization, mostly for the ease of management by IT workers as well as the ability to train future workers to understand the systems. However that standardization becomes a point of failure when there is a problem during an upgrade, or even a hack from some type of malware.

    I saw an interesting piece on how Netflix has tried to expect, and handle failures in the cloud, and a comment from Jeff Atwood that you ought have your own chaos monkey to regularly test your systems. Interesting advice, and in many cases, it’s probably good advice to ensure that both your systems and your people know how to deal with outages.

    You probably cannot eliminate outages, as Netflix and many other companies have learned. However you can work to ensure your people and systems know how to respond. I also wonder if having (at least) two versions of your systems out there at all times that work in a similar way might be a way to provide some tolerance against a single point of failure. I don’t know how you might implement this, but it might provide some protection against a failure in a completely homogeneous environment.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

  • Geeky Distractions

    Captain America is recommended for geeks.

    I saw Captain America recently and enjoyed it. I’ve been following the Marvel comics as they move to the movie screen, having seen Iron Man and Thor as well, and looking forward to The Avengers next year. My kids have enjoyed the movies as well, and it’s likely to be a nice family night out when it releases.

    It’s the middle of summer, with many blockbuster movies released this year that fall into the science fiction, or even geeky, areas at my house. We have had a new Transformers and X-Men movies, Falling Skies on TV, along with a (scary) introduction to Dr. Who for my daughter, and I’ve enjoyed a few books like the Solar Clipper Seriesand the Spinward Fringe series.

    We have no shortage of amazing geeky media around here, and I’m wondering if you feel the same. With that in mind, on a middle-of-the-summer Friday, I have a fun, non-database poll for you:

    What’s your favorite geek media for 2011?

    It could be a book, a movie, or something else. What has excited you in the science fiction world this year? What would you recommend to your fellow geeks that are looking for a diversion from work and want to have some fun?

    I have a few listed above, but right now I’m also reading Temporary Duty, about the first trips in space by humans after meeting another race of traders. It’s from the perspective of a second class enlisted man, which is interesting. I’d also recommend The Burning Wire, with the mystery of Jeffrey Deaver meeting electricity in a scary way.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts