Voice of the DBA

Author: way0utwest

  • The Social Impact of Data

    Let the data drive your decisions.

    This has been something of a mantra for many technical people, and even many business people, across the last twenty or so years. The allure of business intelligence is harnessing lots of data to make decisions that are rooted in some rational analysis of what has happened. Many companies use “data driven decisions” as a way of achieving success.

    However, what about when the data is flawed? When deliberate or inadvertent actions give us data that isn’t quite as pure as we expect. In the last week we have seen many protests and complaints about the ways that many people feel they have been unfairly treated by police. That brutality, particularly for African Americans in the US, has been a problem for decades. Some of that is due to human biases, beliefs, and more. However technology plays a part, and will for some time to come.

    I have watched as algorithms have been used in sentencing, and I’ve questioned their use, as have others. There is this idea that computers will be more fair, looking at inputs and making a decision that isn’t encumbered by human biases. The problem is that humans that program the systems might have some bias. Maybe more disconcerting is that the data used to train systems is likely biased as well.

    There is also the concern that as technology advances, it can be put to new uses, perhaps in ways that the inventor regrets. Oppenheimer regretted the violent use of his work, and I wonder if technology inventors will feel the same way. Surveillance technology is controversial. It can help retails companies prevent theft, but it can also be used in ways that might enhance and reinforce bias in police work. This can be controversial, and no matter how you may feel about the technology, there are moral questions of privacy and prejudgment that are worth debating.

    The last couple weeks have saddened, upset, and angered me at different times. I am also confused and concerned, unsure of how to discuss and debate these topics. I find my position moving slightly with different stories and different information, as I should. I learn more and my views grow and change, shaped by what touches me. I do worry about how we use data in the future, and how it can be abused. There are ways in which more data can help improve our world, but the potential for abuse is high, and I do believe we need governance, transparency, and an independent appeal process for those wrongly impacted.

    Steve Jones

     

  • Daily Coping 5 June 2020

    I’ve 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 decide to look for what’s good, even on difficult days.

    I’ve had a number of difficult days. Some days I think most people just suck. Some days, I look forward and think about how the world might improve over time.

    It’s easy to nitpick and find fault. Find a complaint. We see it constantly in social media, where someone can find a reason not to like or appreciate what many others might.

    These last couple weeks have been difficult in the US for me. As a minority, I find myself angry, sad, and generally upset. I disagree with some people over their views, their posts, their thoughts, but I also know some personally and I know they are good people.

    Our small, personal world where we shake hands, toast over drinks, and share meals is far removed from the larger issues of race, ethics, business, and politics. I try to remember that disagreement is just that, a difference of how we view things. Maybe because of some fundamental reason, maybe because of ignorance of naivety, maybe because of our experience and frame of reference.

    I can still appreciate and smile at my friends and colleagues for the things that they do well, the good, the respect, the favors, and the gentle way they behave in person.

    Even if I think they do a poor job of expressing themselves at times.

    Try to be a better version of yourself online, not a worse one.

  • Do You Think About CheckDB?

    Many of you are administrators, maybe accidental ones, but you have some responsibility for ensuring your databases run smoothly. Part of ensuring this happens is monitoring resource usage, configuring security, and patching your system. However, the long term health of your database requires some proactive work to ensure things continue to run smoothly. One way of doing this is using checkdb to assess the health of your database’s internal structure.

    Those of us that are full time focused DBAs likely run checkdb, though potentially not in the best way. There are implications to “offloading” this work to another machine. Those that are accidental DBAs, developers, or someone else with other duties might not think about checkdb as necessary.

    Do you think about how you should run checkdb? Do you think about licensing issues? Do you think about the frequency and breadth of where you should run checkdb? I’m wondering what some of you do after I ran across a post from Brent Ozar on offloading this work. If you haven’t dug into how checkdb works, you might not realize some of the things that Brent brings up. Even if you think you know how this works, read the post.

    I’ve usually been able to run checkdb in production, but I recognize that more and more environments can’t do that. Usually because of the resource contention. When I’ve had that issue, I’ve accepted a time lag to getting results. I don’t worry about finding out about database corruption a day later. I can probably deal with that. I worry about finding out a month later, when reconstructing data is much, much harder.

    This isn’t to imply or recommend that you need to run checkdb on each production instance, but rather to get you to think about how checkdb works and choose a strategy that works well for your environment. Even if you have this set up, ensure your configuration still makes sense for your organization. Take a few minutes and read the post and then schedule a review with colleagues of your checkdb philosophy.

    Steve Jones
    Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher or iTunes.

  • Daily Coping 4 Jun 2020

    I’ve 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 look up at the sky. Remember we are all part of something bigger.

    I am blessed in that I have a very wide open, beautiful sky where I live. Sometimes when I’m out at night, it’s amazing how many stars I see. During the day, there’s vastness as it stretches from horizon to horizon. Here’s a recent shot of how widely I can see.

    20200525_165937

    I notice this, as it’s something I don’t get in NYC, London, or many cities, where buildings and narrow streets block views. The flatness of the land limits how far and wide I can look.

    I think that sometimes is how I view the world, getting caught up in some situation, some problem, some challenge, and I think about things from a narrow point of view.

    The world is amazingly large. Larger than most of us can imagine. The amount of people, land, money, resources, opportunities, challenges, difficulties, and more are huge. There is more that we are apart of than we can imagine.

    If you have faith in a higher power, that’s another level that is worth remembering.

    The world is bigger than any of us.