Voice of the DBA

Author: way0utwest

  • Daily Coping 24 Apr 2020

    I’ve started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here.

    Thank three people you’re grateful to and tell them why.

    It’s always good to thank people when you can. The action shows good manners, but it also shows gratitude for others who have helped you. Perhaps in a way they are unaware of.

    For me, I have many people that I am grateful for. Certainly my kids, both with their success, their insight into their lives and others that teaches me things, and their efforts to help me get through life. My kids are always willing to help, albeit not always happily.

    There are others, but I’m fairly private here in who I thank. I’ve reached out to a few people to let them know, but the public ones I’ll recognize here are these three (of many).

    Kalen Delaney (@sqlqueen) – I read her book early in my career, and met her at the very first PASS Summit in Chicago. She inspired me to learn more, grow my skills, and even begin writing.

    Andy Warren (@sqlandy) – My fellow founder from SQLServerCentral and likely my closest friend across the last 20 years. We still talk almost every week, despite never living in the same city, and outside of my wife, he’s likely had the most influence on my in my life.

    Allen White (@sqlrunr) – Outside of my son, I’ve run with Allen more than any other person on the planet. We’ve shared early morning runs, meals, and many hugs across the years. We’ve enjoyed conversations, debates, and learned from each other many times. I always appreciate his point of view, thoughts, and perspective, and I can sometimes hear his voice in my head, as I navigate life and the world.

    There are many others, and I’ve reached out to some, but take a moment today and reach out to someone.

  • A Remote Work Guide

    It seems that the vast majority of people I know in the data professional world are working from home these days. Actually, I think more people are working remotely than ever before. I don’t know how much will carry over into the future, but I certainly think more companies will think about having people work from home more often. This might be the thing that finally gets many managers accepting remote work as a normal way for employees to get things done.

    Across the last month I’ve seen lots of advice and thoughts about how to adjust to remote work. Some I agree with, some I don’t. I’ve been full time at home for seventeen years at this point and my wife did it for nearly twenty. We’ve had a lot of experience, and learned a lot in that time. While thinking about the advice I’ve give to others, I noticed this guide from Gitlab for their employees on adjusting to working at home and wanted to share it.

    I think this guide has some good advice, though certainly finding space and finding separation between work and home life can be tough at first, especially with kids at home. I think it took me 2-3 months to really adjust to the new routine when I started full time at home, and even now, I can struggle at times. Usually I have the gym, coaching, travel, and other activities to break up life and get me away from my office. That’s not the case now, and this tweet from Scott Hanselman sums up things for me. This isn’t the same as my routine has been for over a decade. This adjustment is hard, and we should allow for fits and starts from both ourselves and others.

    Many of us technical people are somewhat introverted. I know I am, despite all the public speaking I do. It’s easy to retreat a bit into our own world right now, which isn’t necessarily the best thing. As the guide notes, experiment with some changes and new things. I have to say that I never thought a virtual coffee break or happy hour would be something I’d try, but I look forward to my 9am happy hour with Redgate staff every Friday. Don’t stop engaging completely, and as you find structure, experiment a little here and there.  Loneliness can creep up on you.

    If you’re a person that likes the written word, the SQLServerCentral forums have some great discussions. Feel free to join in to something fun, like coping, baseball, or anything not about SQL, or stick to technical topics if you like. If you prefer video, I’d urge you to reach out to a friend or family member, or even someone on Twitter, for a quick chat. I’ve made it a point to reach out to a few people every couple days, usually text or messaging, just to check in and say hi. It’s been helpful to me.

    Remote work is a challenge in and of itself, but this isn’t the same as normal telecommuting. Try some different things, build some routine, and remember to take care of yourself and your family in this challenging time. If you have tips or tricks that have worked for you, especially those of you in small spaces, share them with others in a comment today.

    Steve Jones

    Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher or iTunes.

  • Live Stairways Day 1 Homework

    I recorded my first class for the Live Stairways – Learning DAX and Power BI. My apologies for anyone that wanted to join. We had an error in the Zoom meeting, and I had to create a new meeting.

    Some fits and starts, but still, an interesting first class, as I worked through Level 1. A few things I, and you, need to do to follow along. I’ll add this to the class course, but for now, some homework.

    Homework

    First, SQL Server.

    If you haven’t installed SQL Server and SSAS, do that. You can get the developer edition from the SQL Server downloads page. I’m using SQL Server 2017, but 2019 should work. Set this up on a machine somewhere, and be sure to add SSAS.

    I don’t have SSAS installed, so I’ll do a video and post on how to add that to your SQL Server installation.

    Next, Power BI Desktop.

    If you haven’t installed Power BI Desktop, go here and download it. It’s an easy, standard Windows install.

    Last, AdventureWorks DW Version

    The AdventureWorks scripts are on GitHub. You can download the install script and run this to set up the DW database.

    That’s it for now. I’ll hold off on the SSAS project for now.

    homework #1 – Install SQL Server and SSAS
    homework 2 – AdventureWorks DW version
    Homework 3 Power BI

  • Mongodb Encryption

    The last decade has seen a number of new database platforms get implemented in a variety of organizations. Most of the newer popular platforms have been NoSQL (Not Only SQL) products, and one of the first that became quite popular was MongoDB. I first ran into a few customers using this platform around 2012/2013. At the time some customers inquired whether we had any products to help with development. We did, somewhat, as we invested in 3T.

    MongoDB has enjoyed a lot of popularity and set some standards for how to store and retrieve data. CosmosDB (and other products) has API compatability with MongoDB, precisely because of its popularity. While I’m not sure MongoDB is the replacement for your RDBMS, I’m sure it has places and problem domains where it shines. I’ve also watched the product improve and grow to meet the requirements and desires of more customers. One recent addition was field level encryption.

    MongoDB has had storage level encryption, similar to TDE in SQL Server. It also has had transport encryption (think SSL network protection). This new feature is more like Always Encrypted (AE) in SQL Server. Clients can perform the encryption and decryption, assuming they have the keys. This isn’t quite like AE as it appears to need code changes, but it does protect the data from system administrators, which is a concern for some applications and industries.

    How well does this work? There certainly is a challenge with managing keys, distributing them to clients, revoking them, and more. All of these are the same challenges more encryption technologies have to deal with, including AE. This is a good addition to all data platforms, which ought to enable encryption, but having, or even using, the encryption, isn’t a panacea for the problem of protecting data. We need lots of other things to be designed, implemented, and operated securely.

    I’m not a big fan of MongoDB, but it’s a fine platform, and it likely works well for some organizations. I’m glad that it continues to enhance its security capabilities, and I hope that anyone implementing it enables all that they can. Too many installations in the past haven’t had good security, and that’s a problem. If you manage data, secure your system, and be sure you continue to monitor the platform for security issues and keep learning more about how to best protect your data.

    Steve Jones

    Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher or iTunes.