Voice of the DBA

Author: way0utwest

  • Hyper-V Guests

    Virtualization has really changed the way that we deal with software. It seems that more and more often I find people using virtualization for all sorts of systems, both production and non-production servers. The ability to run multiple operating systems on a single physical host means that systems are used more efficiently. It also means that more people have the ability to experiment with alternatives to the standard Windows OS that so many of us use.

    Hyper-V has gained a lot of attention over the last few years as Microsoft has tried to get people to run this hypervisor.  It seems that quite a few people have had success running Hyper-V, and it becomes more popular all the time. However, not everyone is happy, and I found a  post about Linux support in Hyper-V, or the lack thereof.

    Whether Microsoft is mis-representing their support is one thing, but this did have me thinking about a wider issue. As we build more and more systems that are virtualized, or even composed of services offered by other vendors, to what extent should the vendor provide support? Is it reasonable to say that your platform works with software x, y, and z, even if you don’t have engineers trained to support the software?

    This could become a large pain point in the future for other types of platforms, as I am sure it will continue to be an issue with hypervisors.  I’m not sure I would expect a hypervisor vendor to offer full  support for various guest operating systems, but I certainly would expect that they would work with engineers at other companies to solve issues, especially if I have a support contract.

    Steve Jones

  • Thanksgiving Bloopers

    I’m slow to get this out, but I finally rendered the raw bloopers from November. Enjoy.

    http://www.youtube.com/v/17QmYLXaDE0?fs=1&hl=en_US

    Part 1

    http://www.youtube.com/v/JwFBT2etgXE?fs=1&hl=en_US

    Part 2

    Part 3

  • We Are Not a Meritocracy

    I’ve heard a few times over the last month that the technology business ought to be a meritocracy, where people are hired, promoted, and fired based on their skills and talents. It’s usually accompanied by a mandate that everyone should  “hire the best person for the job.”

    Information Technology may be the closest we get to a meritocracy, but it certainly isn’t one. Your skills matter, your talent matters, but it’s still a who you know and who-you-get-along-with that overrides everything else. More often than not, skills alone will not carry you far. You need to have a bond with the people that hire you.

    If we were a meritocracy, we could just give everyone a test that applied for a job and hire the person with the highest score. Or just use a lottery to pick everyone that achieved a certain score. That doesn’t sound like the kind of place that I’d like to work since I place a lot of value on the interpersonal relationships with other people.

    It seems that most people really want their employees, or co-workers, to meet some minimum level of competency, continue to improve their skills, and do their share of the work. That’s reasonable and I can appreciate those qualities in people, but the thing that’s most important to me is that we get along.

    I can work with you to improve your technical skills, but I can’t usually do anything about your personality.

    Steve Jones

  • Busy Week

    It’s going to be a busy week for me. At last count, I had over 40 comments for my T-SQL Tuesday party. Most of them are of a decent length, and I need to get through them all to write a summary.

    I’m hoping to get it done for Friday, but no promises right now.