Voice of the DBA

Author: way0utwest

  • Deploying SQL Server Automatically

    I’ve had to install SQL Server many times over the years. Often it has felt that most of these installs were one-offs, a dev server, a new QA instance, a production server for a brand new application. A few times I’ve had to recover from disaster, including restoring master, but often, I just installed SQL Server manually because that was quick and guaranteed. I knew what needed to be done for most of the instances.

    However, I couldn’t be sure. In the past there were relatively few settings that were ever changed outside of the master database, but today there are more, and perhaps more importantly, the tolerance for making mistakes with any security missteps, is low. I’ve spent a bit of time learning to do unattended installs, and I’ve tried systems like FineBuild for installing SQL Server. In any size organization that might want certain standards set up, using one of these systems is important. Perhaps one of the better reasons to do this is ensure that your dev and test systems are configured the same as production to prevent any silly mis-configuration problems.

    This week I saw a post on using Ansible to install SQL Server on Linux, with all the various configuration. While I do think that it’s easier to install SQL Server on Linux programmatically, there are a number of items to set and configure. Following along the install, it’s interesting how much more this feels like something a developer would do, which is how many modern Operations groups approach installs and upgrades. Everything needs to be done without a human directly involved, often because of scale. There are so many systems we manage, often a mix of VMs, cloud, and local systems, which mean that a consistent, programmatic way of installing instances is needed.

    That’s likely one of the most important skills for a modern system administrator. We need to learn to use tools to get our work done. Whether these are free, open-source, or purchased, using a tool to work at scale is more important today than ever before. Even if you are part of a development group, learning to manage systems with code can help ensure you can scale and grow quickly, and more importantly, hand off this job easily to someone else when you reach that point.

    I think there are plenty of homemade scripts and tools that can help here, but almost every time I’ve seen one of these, it’s not very portable to other staff, especially if the author isn’t available. Too often these tools take shortcuts or are specifically tailored to the current environment and not the future one. These days, for many functions we tackle there are extremely well built tools available at no, low, or modest costs. I’d encourage anyone that is handling these tasks to learn about the tools available and pick one. I don’t know that I think any of these are necessarily easier to use, but they are all well documented and capable of handling most of your install, update, and configuration chores.

    Steve Jones

  • A Speedy Digital Overreaction

    I lost my wallet a few weeks ago. I realized that I didn’t have it on a trip to town and was able to use my phone to pay for something. I assumed I’d left it at home in another pair of pants or on my desk.

    We were leaving for a trip the next morning, and I was a bit stressed about it being misplaced. I kept looking around the house, thinking I set it somewhere, checking clothes, bags, etc. I even called a the volleyball gym and asked them to look for it. I checked my accounts, and the cards hadn’t been used, so I turned them off and kept thinking I’d misplaced it.

    Eventually I had to give up and just go, without any forms of payment for the road. Fortunately my wife had her card, as my daughter forgot to bring hers. We had a fun weekend of sharing a single card as we tried to navigate a world that is mostly card based in the US. We forgot the card one afternoon and couldn’t go to a museum, which only accepted cards.

    On the way down, while going through many emotions, I finally accepted that a few hundred dollars were gone and my cards needed replacing. I was traveling in 6 days, so I needed to start preparing. I was able to replace my bank cards and my license online, getting replacements shipped out the next day. It was amazing how quickly and easily I could get this accomplished using my mobile.

    An Interesting Recovery

    Even though I’d accepted the loss, I kept thinking about my wallet. My best guess was that I’d set it down at home and then it fell behind or near a place I didn’t check. I also kept thinking it was strange that no one had tried to use a card if I’d left it in a public place.

    Eventually one of my kids suggested I call Wal-Mart. That was the last place I’d used it, and perhaps they had it. I called them, and surprisingly, a manager called back to say it was there. I drove down, trying not to get my hopes up.

    They did have it, and I recovered it, all cards and cash intact. A relief, and somewhat amazing. Fortunately all my cards arrived quickly, and I was able to travel with all the cards I expected to have, albeit with new numbers that I hadn’t memorized.

    Lessons Learned

    The big lesson is that I should pay more attention to my wallet. I don’t know if I left it on the self-checkout (most likely) or in the cart (less likely), but I can’t let my attention wander.

    The second one is that there are good people out there, and I should remember that.

    Third, I need a wallet inventory. There were a few things, like insurance cards, that I didn’t consider with regards to replacement. That might prove problematic, so I’m grabbing digital images of these cards to keep around, just for my knowledge.

    Fourth, the use of digital NFC payments is by no means universal. Even getting cash out of an ATM isn’t smooth here. Especially once I’ve cancelled the cards. I should have left one enabled, but turned off. I could always turn it on for a few minutes to get cash..

    Fifth, I should keep some sort of phone/email identifier in my wallet. If someone were to find it, at least they could attempt to contact me.

    Sixth, I’m going to try a tracker of some sort. This isn’t the first time I’ve misplaced my wallet, though it’s usually somewhere in the house or in a family member’s car. I don’t know how well these work, but I’m not in the completely digital world, so we’ll see if this helps me to stop losing things.

  • Daily Coping 30 Jul 2021

    I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral 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. 

    Today’s tip is to think about what you learned from a recent problem.

    I had a problem recently. Actually, it’s an often repeating problem in my life. I schedule too many things and get too busy, making me feel stressed, rushed, and behind on things that are important to maintaining life.

    In this case, I’d taken too many evenings off from making small steps in chores. I’d get done with work, or the gym, and start relaxing a bit earlier than I should have. Not that I needed to do a lot of work, but 30 minutes would have made a big difference across a few nights.

    I’m learning to not save a chore until I have time to get it all done. I can tackled it in small stages and even if it’s partially finished, like my front bushes were a few weeks ago. In this case, I should have tackled part of my lawn across a few nights, and I’d have gotten at least half of it done.

    Maybe I’ll be better next time.

  • Daily Coping 29 Jul 2021

    I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral 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. 

    Today’s tip is to write down a few things you are grateful even when life is hard.

    First, my wife. She supports me and helps me through tough times.

    Second, my health. Even when something is injured or aching, I’m fairly healthy. I can’t forget that.

    Third, I’ve found a hobby that keeps me moving, active, and engaged with kids.