Voice of the DBA

Author: way0utwest

  • Daily Coping 4 Nov 2020

    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.

    Today’s tip is to find a new perspective on a problem you face.

    I’m struggling with some motivation lately. This is conference season, and even with the pandemic, it seems like I have no shortage of deadlines, but I also seem to be finding lots of content to watch. I find myself constantly inspired by seeing what others are doing with technology.

    And yet, I am struggling to actually do something.

    Mostly, while I dabble, I find myself struggling to focus and generate some feeling of accomplishment. Really, I feel like I’m not really getting anywhere with a huge variety of new things happening around me. I’m falling behind.

    I bet many people feel the same way, but really, I am trying to turn this around. I am learning a few new things, and getting the chance to work with tools, and so I have turned my view. Rather than looking at the large group of things I’m missing, and what percentage I am not working with, I am trying to focus on the thing I am working on, and valuing the skills I do build.

  • All In to the Cloud

    I was listening to the fall 2020 GroupBy conference recently and heard Gethyn Ellis note that he wasn’t aware of any companies that were over some age (a decade?), and that had made a 100% move to the cloud. The comment caught my eye, not because I haven’t felt the same way, but because I’d just heard from a company that surprised me.

    During the DevOps Enterprise Summit recently, one of the keynotes was from Capital One. They are a 26 year old company that is focused on financial services, and they said that this year they are 100% in the cloud. They recently shut down their last data center. For a highly regulated company, and one that’s not a startup, that is impressive.

    Almost all customers that I talk with are looking at the cloud in some sense. They might not be looking to move their biggest or most important applications, or even a majority, but they are often looking to hedge their bets, while they continue depreciating or using their on-premises assets for some period of time.

    Not so with Capital One. They have heavily embraced DevOps, flexibility and rapid change in a way that had them open their 8th data center in 2014, only to pivot and look to eliminate that part of their infrastructure. They believe there is sufficient capability, reliability, and perhaps most importantly, security, in the cloud providers. They’ve embraced cloud-first, after an initial lift-and-shift approach for their thousands of systems.

    I don’t know that most companies need to move in this direction, but this does show it is possible, and no matter what your concerns are, there are models of enterprises that have found ways to take advantage of the cloud and that you can look to emulate..

    Steve Jones

    Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher or iTunes.

  • Daily Coping 3 Nov 2020

    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.

    Today’s tip is to think of three things that give you hope for the future.

    Today especially, election day in the US, it likely feels hope is elusive for many, but I don’t feel that way. I do have some anxiety, but it’s mostly for the immediate changes in my country, not the future beyond the next year.

    I do have hope and here are three things that I do cling to.

    Individuals are good

    Despite the disagreements I might have with many people about how specific issues, for the most part, I find that people I encounter in life, even in this crazy pandemic world, are good. They have compassion, empathy, and kindness towards others that stand in front of them. It’s important to remember that most of our world is still our live connections, not the digital ones.

    The Next Generations Have Values Beyond Themselves

    I don’t mean to imply that my generation doesn’t think this way, but I find that so many people overall think about themselves more so than anything else. They look at their situation, or their family’s, as much more important than anything else. They have short term thinking, in general.

    Despite the vapid, immediacy of how so many young people view the world, I also find them to more often be thinking about the wider world, other cultures, the planet, and more abstract items, with less concern about money.

    A vague generalization, but one I think is hopeful for the future of many aspects of the world.

    We Locked Down

    As much as a pain as it was, and as much disruption as it caused, regardless of effectiveness, I was amazed the world pulled together to shut down most air travel, most borders, and many businesses.

    It was truly amazing to me that we were able to do this without too much resistance. I know that this has been contentious since then, but in March and April, the world amazed me. Much like I was impressed by efforts like this one.

  • Daily Coping 2 Nov 2020

    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.

    Today’s tip is to start the week by writing down your top priorities and plans.

    It’s the start of a new month, and a new week. Let’s get organized.

    Top priorities and plans:

    1. DPS Presentations
    2. Gym Time
    3. Coaching Decisions
    4. Database Weekly

    These are the big items. The PASS Summit is next week, but two recordings are in, and the one I’m  going live I’ll practice again next week. For this week, I need to get things prepped for the Data Platform Summit, where I have 2 talks I need to record in the next couple weeks.

    After that, I missed a week of the gym, feeling ill. I got back to things last week, but I want to continue to be on track here and take care of my body.

    My volleyball team has been playing 15s and 16s tournaments, but it’s tough, so need to decide on a direction and move forward with that.

    It’s Database Weekly week for me, so I need to keep working on that each day for a bit.