Voice of the DBA

Author: way0utwest

  • SLA Contracts

    What's your contract?

    One of the things that is important for developing a high availability or disaster recovery is knowing what commitments you need to honor for your clients. After all, if you don’t know how quickly you need to be back up, or what protections for data are required, how can you plan to recover systems?

    Yes, I know everyone always wants 100% uptime and 100% data recovery, but those things are very expensive, and sometimes not possible on you systems, so doesn’t it make sense to have some idea of the relative importance of data in each system?

    For this Friday, I wanted to ask the DBAs out there about the contracts that should exist between the technology infrastructure and Its business clients. The question this week is:

    Do you know what your SLA is?

    Do you actually have a written contract for various systems with the clients that spells out specifically the acceptable uptime and data loss parameters? If so, do you know what those numbers are?

    You do need to have some idea of what is acceptable, even if it’s not a guarantee in a contract. It’s necessary in order to efficiently plan what level of resources will be devoted to your systems. Without this, you might be making investments on the wrong systems, leaving those systems that are more important from the business perspective, exposed to more data loss than can be tolerated.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

  • Bad IT People

    Know Your Enemy – A tenet of IT Security

    It’s going to happen. Someone, somewhere, is going to deliberately compromise security and abuse their position as an administrator. Hopefully it doesn’t happen at your company, but the longer you are in IT, the better chance you have of being around when a “security DR event” occurs.

    This article talks about IT people going bad, and it happens more often than we hear about. Many companies don’t want to disclose these types of events, and it’s possible one happened in your organization already.

    This is nothing new. In every industry in which I’ve worked there have been people that take advantage of loopholes in systems and processes to engage in criminal activity. I have had liquor stolen from bars and lumber from a warehouse. We can’t prevent all of these activities, and companies know this. Usually there is a line in your accounting system that marks these losses as some cost of doing business.

    As with many external hacking issues, companies are likely to try and prevent anyone from finding out about these activities outside of the company. That’s not a great solution for anyone, since often these employees are let go and hired by the next company who has no idea what the person they just hired has done.

    You shouldn’t participate in these activities, and you ought to turn in those that do. However I know many people find that harder to do when confronted by this situation. At the very least, if you turn a blind eye, don’t help prolong a bad IT person’s career in this business. Don’t give them any sort of recommendation, and don’t include them in your personal network in any way.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

  • MVP Summit 2011

    I am up in Redmond at the annual MVP Summit, where all Microsoft MVPs get treated to a three day conference on the Microsoft campus. It’s an event where MVPs interact various Microsoft employees and end up blogging about how NDA talked NDA and the NDA that might will be coming in NDA version of the NDA software.

    I’m joking a little as the information presented is bound by a strict NDA, and not much can be passed on by MVPs right now. At some point most of what we learn will be released to the public, but for now it’s private information. I know that’s annoying, and I found it incredibly annoying, but I will tell you a little something about this Summit that you might care about in a minute.

    The picture above shows me following Kevin Kline (blog| @KeKline) onto the campus after being dropped off at the bus. And the picture below is as far as I’m comfortable sharing what I saw.

    So what can I share about the Summit? The biggest thing I can tell you is that the SQL Server MVPs are arguing passionately for a better product. They are talking with Microsoft employees, often criticizing and explaining what is wrong with the product, and what should be fixed. They sometimes don’t balance that well with complements, but their goal is to get software that is better written, with more features, and solves the problems that most of us face on a regular basis.

    Just like most of you, the SQL Server MVPs are DBAs, developers, consultants, and other SQL Server professionals that enjoy working with SQL Server. They may promote the product as a good solution, but it’s not as some shill trying to stay in Microsoft’s good graces. In fact, I would guess there are more than a few developers that Microsoft that cringe at the thought of getting up in front of the SQL Server MVPs and trying to present information. It’s a room full of intelligent, outspoken alpha geeks that are quick to pounce on speakers and demand excellence in the finished product.

    The SQL Server MVPs are your representatives and liaisons to the SQL Server team at Microsoft. They have the chance to express the concerns and desires of the rest of you directly to the product developers more often than the average customer. So the next time you see an MVP at a user group, SQL Saturday, or somewhere else, let them know what you would like to see changed in SQL Server, what could be improved, or maybe a wish list of things to add. You can influence the people that have a little influence with Microsoft and perhaps make a difference.

    Steve Jones

    There was a fun article on the tweets coming out of the Summit from ZDNet. If you want to follow along with the comments at the Summit, there is a very active hash tag on Twitter, #MVP11.

  • 2011 MVP Summit – Day 1

    I’m glad I went running this morning. It’s been a long day, in and out of sessions and meetings all day on the Microsoft campus. I didn’t get to a lot of sessions, preferring to meet with people in the hallways and talk about SQL Server and database stuff. The most valuable time for me is always the time when I get to talk with people and network, building bonds and relationships that will help me in the future.

    Or maybe will help the other person. Networking is funny that way. You never know if you’re giving or receiving more from a person, but it all seems to result in a great synergy to me.

    Glad I was up early to run as I had to work a bit tonight and am about to head out to the evening reception.