Voice of the DBA

Author: way0utwest

  • Daily Coping 16 Feb 2023

    Today’s coping tip is to focus on being kind rather than being right.

    This is one of the things that grows my wisdom over time. I don’t need to be right anymore, at least not often. I can try to guide and assist without winning over colleagues, friends, family, etc.

    One of my kids was having a bad time, and it was because of a poor decision on their part. Rather than try to make sure they knew the problem, or that I knew it, I tried to support and listen.

    It is helpful for me to remember that I’m really responsible for myself, and somewhat my wife, but no one else. That includes my adult kids.

    This is a good coping skill that reduces stress in my life, when I can support, offer, assist, but not take ownership or become invested in another’s decision or action.

    I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQL Server Central newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag.

  • The Cost of the Cloud

    Basecamp (formerly 37 Signals) is quitting the cloud. One of the founders gives some reasons, and he had some detail in a tweet on what they’ve spent in the cloud the last few years. Over USD$3mm on various services, though their costs in search seem very high. I don’t, and haven’t, run as busy a business as they do, so I don’t know if they’ve truly done a good job architecting things and setting up services. They say they have, though I’d expect everyone to say and think that.

    However, I’ll assume they are correct and they can’t optimize things any more than they are currently. Their decision makes some sense, and I agree with it. I’ve been surprised at the growth of the cloud, both in size and how quickly people are moving to the cloud. I’ve also been saying for years that if you have a steady or known workload, the cloud is likely very expensive.

    Maybe that’s worth it for your organization. Not dealing with physical resources, maybe having slightly less staff, maybe less CapEx vs. OpEx. Those are decisions for management and finance people. For most of us, the cloud both simplifies some tasks and makes others more complex. Provisioning, testing out Proof-of-concepts, and scaling are easy. Identity protocols, gaining (and keeping) knowledge of how various options work (networking, storage, etc.) , and keeping track of resources become more complex. Not to mention the world constantly shifting under your feet as cloud providers change how their platforms work.

    There are costs in both hard dollars (or your currency of choice) and in the time your staff spends dealing with a new way of doing business. The calculation of whether this is a cost that makes sense is very dependent on your situation. I have customers that love the cloud and others that hate it. The value they get varies dramatically and some would never go back to data centers while others are ready to work long hours to leave the cloud. Overall the sentiment is the cloud is great, but like many decisions made by management there are particulars that baffle the technical staff.

    The one thing I have learned about the cloud is that it takes a different sort of mentality from staff than on-premises resources. We have to learn to spin things up and down, scaling as needed. We need to better understand budgets and not look at costs as though they were personal expenses. We also need to be flexible with resources, understanding that machines that are idle are not sunk costs; they are ongoing costs.

    The cloud is amazing, and I think it is very useful in lots of situations, but a blanket move to the cloud can be expensive. Make sure that everyone involved in moving to the cloud understands that.

    Steve Jones

    Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher, Spotify, or iTunes.

  • Daily Coping 15 Feb 2023

    Today’s coping tip is to look for good in others, particularly when you feel frustrated.

    We all deal with conflicts with others throughout out lives. How we handle those often says a lot about us. As I age, I try to avoid getting emotional and upset, reacting too quickly, and working to understand why someone said/acted/did something.

    Today, I’m thinking about my dog. He’s a frustrating beast at times, growing out of puppy stage, but still young. He was a rescue/adoption and a nervous boy. He loves my wife, but he bonds well with all of us.

    One of our struggles is leaving him at home. He mostly goes to work with my wife, but there are times where he’s at home and I or someone else needs to leave and he wants to follow their car. I was heading to the gym recently, and I had to turn around a couple times to put him back in the house. We don’t want to lock him in as he’s still getting housebroken, so we’ve been giving him a treat to keep him busy while we leave.

    A frustrating period of time as I was trying to get gym time during a lunch break, but I had to remember how much this guy loves me and how often he makes me smile. He’s not trying to be frustrating. He just wants to be with me.

    I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQL Server Central newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag.

  • Daily Coping 14 Feb 2023

    Today’s coping tip is to thank someone and tell them how they made a difference for you.

    I’ve had a lot of success in my life, as well as a lot of help along the way. I’ve worked hard, but by no mean has that meant I did things by myself. I think far too many people forget about the support they’ve had from others.

    One person that made a difference in my life was a coach that my daughter had. He was a great coach for her life, but he inspired me as well. Like me, he had a daughter that played and then he started coaching. He wasn’t more than a casual volleyball player, but learned to be a really good coach and a wonderful human.

    He taught me a lot, answering my questions, giving me guidance, and he was one of the people that got me thinking about coaching and then moving into that role. I let him know recently how much he changed my life.

    I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQL Server Central newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag.