Voice of the DBA

Author: way0utwest

  • Overwhelmed, Stress, and Planning

    It’s been a bit hectic this year. In fact, it feels crazy most weeks as I try to manage work, home life, and free time. More and more I have been having a night or two a week where I just want to lay in bed and watch some TV to unwind. I even find myself ignoring email on the weekends, which is something I never used to do. If I could process something in a minute, I’d rather just handle it.

    However when stress hits, and you feel like there’s too much to do, it’s good to be able to let things go, or at least delay them for a bit. And that’s what I’ve trying. I’m slightly behind on articles, and likely need to send a few apology letters to authors.

    I started to free up time for next year, anticipating that I might be doing more volunteer work. When that fell through, I started to direct that energy elsewhere, looking for other community engagements. However that started to grow like crazy, and I once again find myself slightly overwhelmed.

    My son has karate 3 nights a week (as do I), my daughter had 2 days of volleyball a week, and my wife has had a few trips, which mean I have horse chores. I’ve been to a few SQL Saturdays lately, and have one more in addition to the SQL Connections and PASS Summit coming up next month. Then there’s ski season. It’s one of the ways I try to get away from work and manage stress, and I look forward to it. But it means that I have to prep for the time off.

    I would like to get to more community events in 2011, but I am starting to wonder if I will. The SQL Saturdays are short trips, but the time away adds up and I’d like to actually slow down a bit next year and take on less project stuff.

    There’s more to life than work, and I’m trying to remember that. Hopefully more of you remember that as well and ensure you have a good balance in life. It’s good to recognize when you’re out of balance and look to correct the situation. I’m not sure what I will do, but I am aware that I need to plan on doing something different next year.

  • The Growth of Professional Development

    When I started in my career, it seemed that there wasn’t a good way to grow your career. Myself, and many others, somewhat fumbled around, looking for jobs with bigger databases or more money. We thought that learning to be the best at a particular technology was the way to grow your career. That or go into management, something very few of us were interested in.

    Most people I worked with took a job with the expectation that they’d be there forever. When that didn’t work out, they started applying for other jobs, hoping the next one would be the last they’d need for a long time. Managing one’s career was something you did by updating a resume and asking your friends if they knew of any jobs, along with the random learning that comes from new projects or reading magazines.

    I’ve been amazed in the last 4-5 years to see so many people taking a more active role in their own careers, spending more time on a regular basis managing their careers. I have been giving a presentation on The Modern Resume for a couple years and I find more and more people interested in attending and finding new ways to formalize their professional development. Not everyone will actually make the effort,  but new tools like social networking sites make it easier, and I regularly find more people that are spending time on the professional development in their lives.

    I recently submitted a pre-conference session to the upcoming SQL Rally event next May with Chris Shaw that deals with Finding Your Dream Job. I am still surprised that it was accepted, but it seems more and more people want to get career related information along with the technical sessions at various events. Voting is open for the sessions, which will be an interesting test in and of itself. Are there enough people that will pay for a professional development session alongside the other technical sessions submitted? Grant Fritchey has a great one on Query Tuning and Brian Kelley has one on security. Tough competition.

    Whether or not Chris’ and my session is accepted doesn’t matter. I’m excited that the topic is even under consideration, and that there are two other great sessions from Joe Webb and Kevin Kline. I would urge you to vote, and vote honestly. Let us know what you truly think is worth paying for and valuable for your career.

    Steve Jones

  • The Hybrid

    I’m off to SQL Server Connections next week and looking forward to the conference. This is my first time attending, but I have wanted to go for some time. This is one of the few events that is not specifically focused on one technology. In fact, it’s actually 7 conferences in one, co-locating events on ASP.NET, Silverlight, SQL Server, Visual Studio, Sharepoint, Windows, and Exchange.

    It seems that more and more of us working in information technology are called upon to work with a variety of products and platforms. While you might primarily be a DBA that deals with T-SQL or SQL Server administration, you probably are called upon to use other skills as well. You might need to help with Windows security, or Exchange administration, or even do some .NET development. As wide as the SQL Server platform is, it seems that often we have the need for skills with other technologies.

    Even if you don’t actually work in other areas because of regulations like Sarbanes-Oxley, understanding those other technologies can really help your career. You might better understand how to integrate SQL Server into your environment or better secure an application. You might even be able to offer ideas that  help a co-worker in their job troubleshoot a problem.

    I’ve felt that the most talented people in IT usually have a varied background and understand a wide variety of technologies. They bring that wide view of the forest to bear on a problem, and often find a solution because they can think laterally and are not tied down to the boundaries of a specific product.

    Steve Jones

  • The SQL Rally – Who Would I Vote For?

    I was looking over the pre-conference sessions submitted for the SQL Rally event taking place next May in Orlando. I think it’s great that the community gets the chance to vote on the submissions and help decide what will be offered.

    Note that you don’t have to attend the event to vote, so go vote now. Vote honestly, and think about what you’d be interested in seeing, and paying for.

    But go vote!

    I’ve seen some posts from Joe Webb, Andy Leonard, Grant Fritchey and Brian Kelley as well as others on their submissions. I went to vote, and thought there were some great sessions. So who would I vote for? Let’s break them down:

    BI Track

    A Day of SSIS with Andy Leonard: Andy is a friend and I’ve seen him speak. He’s got that down home, Southern style and he’s easy to listen to. Andy is one of my go-to people for SSIS questions and this session likely will give you the framework for building great SSIS packages along with tools to help to ensure you know what will be happening in your ETL process. I think this would give me the outline of how to better design SSIS packages.

    Business Intelligence Workshop with Patrick LeBlanc, Devin Knight, Mike Davis and Adam Jorgensen. Patrick is a good friend as well and the rest of the Pragmatic Works crew are talented consultants that I’ve recommended work to. Learn to build a data warehouse from start to finish. Ambitious, but I can certainly see this happening. After all, founder Brian Knight used to build a SQL Server cluster in an hour, something that was equally impressive.

    Advanced Reporting Services – How to achieve almost anything by Simon Sabin. I think Simon is one of the people that I would highly recommend for almost any SQL Server work in the UK. He’s a great speaker, and easy to understand. This session looks like a great outline for how to design your reporting infrastructure so that it is flexible and you can build those reports quicker than ever.

    The winner?

    You can’t go wrong with any of these sessions. They all cover slightly different topics, but you have great topics and they’ll all be great. I expect that the community’s majority on the topic (SSIS, SSRS, DW) is what will get picked. I’d choose SSIS, but only because I think Andy would teach me a ton in one day that would help me get an SSIS job if I needed one.

    DBA Track

    Multi-SQL Server Management with PowerShell with Aaron Nelson. Aaron is one of the people that I think has done wonders with Powershell. Allen White, Sean McCown, and Aaron are the people I’d go to with Powershell questions. If I were managing servers, I’d do to this session. Powershell is built for scripting, and multiple servers require scripting to manage effectively and efficently. Aaron tells you to bring a laptop and I expect tons of code to be shown and examined.

    SQL PowerShell for the DBA with Maximo R. Trinidad. I don’t know Maximo, but this looks like a nice intro to Powershell. If you’ve never touched the product, this is likely the session you’ll want to spend some time in to get up to speed quickly.

    Top-to-Bottom SQL Server Security with Brian Kelley. Brian has been someone I’ve known for a decade and he’s a top notch, SQL Server expert. Much of his work has been with security, and he is definitely the person I’d call about any security issues. This looks like a great session, one that will teach you about many of the security things that most of us never think of. I’ve seen some sessions from the SANS Institute and the security people just look at the world differently. This should be a valuable session for anyone that has a high security or highly regulated environment.

    Query Performance Tuning, Start to Finish with Grant Fritchey. I’ve known Grant for many years, and we talked about his session before it was submitted. Grant’s a great speaker, and you’ll enjoy listening. However Grant’s also written two great books on performance tuning and execution plans. He’s bringing that experience here and packing a ton into a day of learning.

    The winner? I think these are all worthy sessions, but I’d have to say that if I were voting with my wallet, I’d pick Grant’s session. I’d learn something in any of them, but gaining more knowledge on query tuning would be of more interest to me. Brian’s security one would be a close second, and if I actually had to manage multiple servers, I’d probably think about Aaron’s Powershell one.

    Developer Track

    What every .NET developer MUST know about SQL Server

    with Klaus Aschenbrenner. I haven’t seen Klaus speak, but this title caught my eye immediately. I think this is exactly the type of session that every developer that isn’t highly experienced with SQL Server should attend. I don’t know how it will go across since I haven’t seen it, but I love the topic.

    Database Design Workshop by Louis Davidson. I’ve seen Louis speak quite a few times and I think he’s one of the people that really understands and cares about good database design. He has done this session, or a similar one a few times, including at the PASS Summit. You can’t go wrong with this one.

    Maximize Your SQL Server 2008 Coding Skills with Plamen Ratchev. I met Plamen a few years ago and was impressed with him. I even borrowed part of one of his presentations (with permission) to incorporate into one I was doing. Plamen knows a lot about T-SQL and if you write T-SQL code, then this is likely the one to vote for. It doesn’t take any more time to do it right, IF you know how to do it right. Learn how to do it right.

    The Winner? I’d have to say that Plamen’s session on T-SQL, including the new enhancements would be the one I pick.

    Misc

    I submitted one here, so keep that in mind.

    Finding Your Dream Job with Steve Jones and Chris Shaw. Yep, this is mine. It’s based on the Modern Resume presentation I’ve done many times and Chris’ work with interviewing and finding a good job. I listened to Chris’ 24 Hours of PASS presentation and was impressed. And we decided to do one together. We’re looking to teach you how to find the job that fits you, and then get it by improving your skills and making yourself more attractive to employers.

    So I Got Promoted, Now What? with Joe Webb. Joe is a great speaker and this session will help you figure out how to move out of being just a technical guy to being a manager or lead. Make no mistake, managing people is not easy and it requires new skills. This is a great place to learn how to adapt.

    Leadership and Team Management Skills for the Database Professional with Kevin Kline. Kevin has been a leader for years. He is one of the people that stands out in the SQL Server field. We need more leadership and managerial skills and if you are looking for the SQL equivalent of “Win Friends and Influence People,” this is it.

    The winner? I can’t pick one here. If you want to find a better job, then my session will help, although the leadership skills from Joe and Kevin can help with that as well. If you are interested in being a team lead, manager, or some other supervisory role, pick Joe or Kevin.

    They’re All Good

    Rarely have I found any bad pre-conference sessions offered, and in this case I think you have some tough decisions to make. But Vote for something, and pick those sessions that you think will help you most with your career.