Voice of the DBA

Author: way0utwest

  • Have You Made a Difference?

    On New Year’s Eve, I was reminiscing about the past decade. I started posting some pictures on Twitter from the past decade, which were really memories for me of what had happened in life. Later, I saw this tweet from the Pittsburgh Pirates, quoting the late Roberto Clemente, a renowned humanitarian. The quote is:

    “Any time you have an opportunity to make a difference in this world and you don’t, then you are wasting your time on Earth.”

    The world is in a crisis. Whether you think we are over- or under-reacting, making good or bad choices, or anything else. The reality is that we are fighting a pandemic throughout most of the world, many of us are isolated at home with limited contact with others. Many people are struggling with health concerns, financial issues, job security, and other issues. It’s not just their own personal struggles, but the struggles of others can affect us. Loneliness is certainly a big issue for many, even those living with others and missing their routine.

    Have you made a difference during this time to others?

    It’s a simple question, but it’s one that weighs on my mind. I wish I were a medical professional and could volunteer. I wish I were trained as a first responder and could do something. I’d be happy to go move boxes or otherwise help people working long hours to help others. I’m somewhat upset and guilty because inaction and reducing the spread is more important than my feelings.

    I’ve tried to make a difference in a few ways, with the daily coping in the newsletter and my own blogging for the things I’m trying. I’ve hosted some video calls at T-SQL Tuesday live, just providing a space to touch base with friends and the rest of #sqlfamily. I’m proud my company is trying some things and reaching out the community, without an ulterior motive. Our CEO passionately asked that we do things for the community without regard to sales, customers, or any Redgate purpose other than giving back.

    This is a time to pull together and help others. Many are scared, many are worried, many are dismissive, but even more are struggling. What can you do to help someone else this week?

    Steve Jones

    Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher or iTunes.

  • Daily Coping 6 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.

    Today’s Tip is to play a game that you enjoyed when you were younger.

    I have enjoyed lots of games, but my interests changed over time. Board games and card games as a kid, role playing and Dungeons and Dragons as a teenager, some computer role playing games later.

    Then when my middle son grew to 12 or so, we played Halo and Doom, going through the old DOS versions and getting through the more modern computer version. He even got me to buy a new video card for that one.

    These days I mostly play a few games with family, and those have been fun. We’ve acquired many over the years. Two that I enjoyed as a younger person were backgammon and Stratego. This past weekend, I challenged family members to a few games, mostly to just get my mind off other concerns and work.

    It was a nice break. I don’t know that I’ll look to do this every day, but I will look to play a few more games during the week to distract myself and break up our routine.

  • Have You Deployed an Availability Group?

    The last few weeks have been interesting, to put it mildly, with both more and less engagement online. I see more people holding video calls, both inside and outside of work, but I also see less engagement at SQLServerCentral, blogs, Slack, and some of the more common community tools we’ve had. I suspect this new way of working is strange, and it’s upset many of the rhythms that people have built over the years.

    In any case, one very important and common technology in the SQL Server platform is an Availability Group. This technology has been in the product since 2012, and unlike clustering, it’s relatively easy to set up. Not to say it’s easy, and you do need to develop some skills outside of T-SQL to understand how this works. This week I’m wondering how many of you might never have done this?

    Or maybe you’ve done it once or twice and forgotten about it.

    While we’re dealing with the various challenges of a pandemic, this is also a time where you might brush up on a few skills or learn new ones. Deploying, configuring, and testing an AG is something that is valuable to both DBAs and developers, and it’s a good skill to bring to your next interview. Every employer wants to know you understand HA/DR.

    We have a Stairway Series that can help you along with quite a few articles and blogs that people have written. There are various lab posts as well, including a good one from Ryan Adams, that can help you get started. If you don’t have equipment handy, you can build one in Azure for cheap, and even turn off the VMs when you’re not using them and spend just a few dollars a month on storage. That’s not much cost to build a valuable skill in your career.

    If you’ve built a lab, maybe you want to tackle something complex, like the scenarios that Allan Hirt writes about on his blog. If you’ve never done one, maybe try to build one, take notes and capture screenshots, and blog about it. In Word if you want to start a portfolio to send out with your resume, or on your live blog. It might be a good time to start a new blog.

    Focusing on a project like this can help shut out some of the noise in the world and engage you in a new way with your career. Hopefully you are doing well, and life is proceeding for you. If not, maybe tackle a project to take your mind away from things, and check out our daily coping tips in the newsletter.

    Steve Jones

    Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher or iTunes.

  • Daily Coping–3 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.

    Today’s tip is to Immerse yourself in a new book, TV show, or podcast.

    The idea is to give you something periodic or longer lived than a movie. I think that’s good, and escaping life is important. I know it matters to me.

    Oscar Nominees

    Not a book, but my wife enjoys watching all the Oscar nominated films each year. Last year we were too busy, so my wife, son, and sometimes the other kids have taken a few nights a week to work through the 2019 films, and then moved on to the 2020 films.

    It’s good because many of them are films we wouldn’t otherwise have watched, or at least some of us wouldn’t have watched. It’s also a good time together where we escape.

    Books

    I loved reading. I usually go through 60-100 fictional books a year. Not so many non-fiction, but I do get through fictional ones. With my sabbatical, I went through almost 20 during that break. Since then, I continue to steal 5 or 10 minutes at times to read a few pages.

    Lately I’ve been working through Evanovich’s Plum series. I read the first 9 or 10 a long time ago, but I started back through them because they’re light, funny, silly, and in no way related to the world. I like that.

    So far this year I’m up to about 35 books, and with this pandemic, I bet I set a record.

    Find Your Own Thing

    Coping, cleaning, tackling projects, all good stuff. I need less stuff to cope, which means escapes are good for me. Maybe not for you, but it does help me.