Voice of the DBA

Author: way0utwest

  • The MCM Journey

    I’m not really planning on getting the MCM. Perhaps I’ll change my mind, but it’s not the time for me to do it. I’m not consulting, and not planning on doing it anytime soon. If I studied enough to pass the lab, likely my skills would atrophy without some real work. At this point in my life, I don’t have the time for getting real work.

    Actually, I don’t have the time for real studying, either. However MVPs have the chance to take the written exam for free, instead of $500, and I can’t really justify passing up this opportunity. I scheduled it in January, and last week started studying by downloading some of the MCM Readiness videos from SQL Skills.

    I’ve been slowly starting to watch them, and I realize how much I don’t know about SQL Server as I go through them. It’s not all bad news as I also realize how much I do know in terms of general concepts and understanding of how the pieces and parts work.

    I don’t expect to pass, especially after seeing that someone like Jason Strate didn’t on his first try, but this is a good chance for me to focus on a task and also to get an idea of where I stand.

  • Call in the Experts

    Today we have a reprint of an editorial from Feb 1, 2006 as Steve is on vacation.

    Since my data center move last weekend the servers seemed a touch slow. Actually once I checked the mail server I noticed it was substantially slower. With my 100kbps connection on Sunday and Monday, everything seemed slow to me. I solved that DSL problem noting that the satellite receiver didn’t have a filter on it. Once I fixed that, the site was slow, but it was useable. I still wasn’t sure that it was me.

    But I got a few emails from people, so I called my network guy because I wanted him to check things. He said he’d be happy to meet me at lunch to check things since we didn’t have remote switch access (yet). We meet at lunch, me with a couple extra cables just in case. We log in and immediately see that there are tons of CRC errors coming from the switch to the firewall. He knows what it is: duplex mismatch. We open the cage, use a serial cable to connect, and see that the switch is set to 100 full and the firewall is auto. Apparently the negotiation when things don’t match drops to 10Mbps half duplex and can generate lots of CRC errors. We reset it and things are running quicker now.

    The point of this editorial isn’t so much that I’m an idiot about networking or that you should check your switches and NICs to be sure that they are set to match, but more that you should know what you don’t know.

    And quickly call someone in.

    It’s one thing to try to figure things out yourself, work through issues and learn on the go, but you should know the limits of your knowledge. In most areas I can quickly tell when I don’t know something and should just ask. But even in SQL Server I usually have a feel within an hour if I can solve the problem or I’m out of my league. And when I am, I call support or a consultant to help.

    Too often I see people beat on a problem for too long without calling in help. Sometimes they call too soon, but usually they work a problem too long because they are afraid to ask for help. Maybe they think they’ll look bad or the boss will wonder why he’s paying them. I don’t think it’s a knock against you to call for help periodically. I’ve been a DBA a long time and it hasn’t hurt me.

    In any case, knowing what you don’t know is a valuable skill. A skill I’d highly recommend you learn.

  • 64 Bit

    Today we have a reprint of an editorial from Nov 25, 2005 as Steve is on vacation.

    No news yet on SQL Server, but apparently the next version of Exchange will not have 32-bit support. The reason appears to be the improvements in disk I/O because of larger caches, so Microsoft if warning users to validate, test, and prepare for Windows 2003 64-bit.

    I guess is makes sense, but if the improvements are really good because of caching, why not push harder on SQL Server? I’d think that it would benefit greatly as well. The demos I’ve seen definitely show improvement in performance, but they aren’t really pushed.

    Maybe the reason is that so many SQL Servers are developer and personal editions on desktops and no one wants deployment issues moving between versions. I know there shouldn’t be any, but how many developers have told you there shouldn’t be any problems? After they’ve deployed something?

    I think SQL Server will see more and more 64-bit installations, but they’ll be the minority of installations. Not too many people are playing with it, at least not that I’ve heard. I’d love to get some 64-bit servers for SQLServerCentral.com and upgrade to 2005, 64-bit just to see how it runs. However the investment just for kicks isn’t worth it as we’re not stressing out SQL 2K installation at this time.

    However, if anyone has any pull with Dell, HP, or even Unisys, we’re looking for a site sponsor to supply a bit of hardware. I’ve got all servers from one vendor, but I’d definitely be looking to switch for the right offer

  • And the winners are….. (iPads for Christmas contest)

    Congratulations to the following winners of our iPads for Christmas contest. It was a hard choice, but I ended up with these winners:

    • CC-597066
    • DataChomp
    • Scott Murray-240410
    • richardn-1128243
    • Michael Lysons
    • chris.cantley
    • Nick Van Dyk
    • barb.wendling
    • hghumphrey
    • MdApache

    I had over a 100 entries to go through, and it  took some time, and a few passes to get down to about 20, then 14, then pick the last 10. These were interesting entries, and while it was close, these seemed to stand out in my mind.

    I’ll be contacting the winners today, and then letting Red Gate know as well and we’ll get those iPad shipments moving.

    Thanks to everyone that entered, and happy holidays to you all.