Voice of the DBA

Author: way0utwest

  • Don’t Lose Data Without a Hacker

    The GDPR has been law since 2016 and been enforced since mid 2018. California has the CCPA in law, but not being enforced. In any case, it’s 2020 and we have lots of tools and knowledge about securing systems. We aren’t perfect, and certainly Microsoft isn’t, but we should be avoiding simple mistakes.

    For those of us in the US, or outside CA, we might be less worried, but if you’re in the EU, you should be concerned. Here is a mistake by Virgin Media, with data exposed for months. Someone configured a database, likely set it up for access remotely, and didn’t do a good job.

    It does start to feel that we ought to have some sort of security smoke test in every organization that checks for exposed databases in our networks. Perhaps we even ought to have this for all subscriptions with vendors that host services for us in the cloud. That might be good for IT people, but what about shadow IT, or the average person that just wants to share data with co-workers?

    No one ought to be able to configure a file share, an S3 bucket, Azure BLOB Storage, or anything similar by clicking in some sort of control panel. Honestly, I get that vendors want to make things easy, but we need security over data in all organizations. There ought to be a “configured” click to share button that runs a series of scripts to ensure we have secure controls over resources. File shares might be hard, but for databases, there’s no excuse.

    I do know that for some people, it’s a pain when they can’t create databases. I deal with customers regularly that have this restriction on developers, and it’s problematic. However, we need better security, and really, we need less real data being shared so widely. As an industry, we need better dev data sets, and we need better security protocols over any production data.

    Steve Jones

    Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher or iTunes.

  • SQL Is Always Going to be Popular

    Hiring staff is hard, and certainly it can sometimes be a challenge to find good people to build software and manage systems. Many of us want to be those good people, and we are looking to improve our own skills. I think that’s one of the reasons that SQLServerCentral has become so popular. Many of us want to become better at our jobs.

    It can be hard to determine what to learn and where to invest your time. I’ve talked with plenty of people that have worried about various Microsoft technologies and their longevity. Notification Services is the classic example, but I know people that have been wary of SSIS, Power BI, Azure, and more. It’s daunting to consider spending 100 hours across the next year on some technology, only to find it’s not likely to help you get the job you want.

    Recently there was an analysis of the coding tests that were given to developers by various companies. This is interesting to look at from an employee view, when thinking what skills to work on. One thing I see is that SQL is constantly in demand. It ranks on the second most test language, only behind JavaScript. That ranking makes sense in that lots of companies need help with web technologies, and there are lots of these jobs.

    What I’d also say is that most every job out there needs SQL. Whether you are a web developer, a mobile or client side developer, you use Java, Python, C#, or anything else, you’ll work with a database. Even many of the NoSQL class of databases have added SQL as a query language for developers.

    SQL, for all of its shortcomings, is a standard way of working with data. It’s a skill that isn’t likely to go away anytime soon and the more you can build efficient queries, the more likely it is that you’ll impress someone in the next interview. Read our T-SQL articles and practice answering questions in the forums, and you might be surprised at how much of a T-SQL guru you can become.

    Steve Jones

    Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher or iTunes.

  • Build the VCS Habit

    I’ve preached the value of Version Control Systems (VCS) for many years now. In various writings, in the talks I’ve given on development, CI, DevOps, and more, I always talk about the value of a VCS. One thing I often say is that if someone won’t use version control, they aren’t a professional. I don’t say professional developer, professional DBA, or anything else. You’re not a technology professional without knowing how to use a VCS in 2020. You certainly can’t work for me if you won’t use one.

    I saw a nice, short post from Kevin Chant on the ways in which a SQL Server professional can benefit from a VCS. Many of us working with SQL Server aren’t developers, we may not be some DevOps engineer. We might be someone that manages systems or handles backups. We might be someone that deals with complex HA, DR, or replication processes. We may be report writers or ETL developers.

    In all those cases, we have scripts, and these days, the majority of us need to work with others and often share these scripts with a team. We need to update the code over time, and we need to ensure that if anyone edits the code, we know what was changed. In other words, we need versioning, and we certainly need some easy way of sharing things.

    There are lots of choices, but there’s no downside to using a VCS and lots of upside. Changes are you have some VCS in your organization and adding another repo (database) of code is easy. I recommend git, but really, I think Subversion, TFS, Perforce, VCS, Vault, Mercurial, etc. are all fine. Even Visual Sourcesafe (VSS) works, though I’d say you could do better at a lower cost these days.

    Outside of becoming better at SQL coding, I think learning to use a VCS and becoming comfortable with it is a core skill for a tech professional. You can get git for free, and it’s easy to learn. I’ve written some basics on my blog and SQLServerCentral. There are plenty of tutorials out there (I like Atlassian), and you can even practice skills online. Do yourself a favor and become a better professional today. Start using a VCS for all your scripts and code.

    Steve Jones

    Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher or iTunes.

  • Learning some DAX

    I’ve not done much BI work in my career, other than simple aggregates in reports. I’ve wanted to tackle projects, but I’ve rarely had a chance to spend time in this area at work.

    Recently I had a bit of time and decided to look at some Power BI courses.  At Pluralsight, when searching Power BI, I got a learning path that showed a number of courses from different authors. In the intermediate track, the first course was from Eugene Meidinger.

    2019-12-09 13_40_32-Microsoft Power BI for Analysts Path _ Pluralsight

    I met Eugene last year at SQL Saturday Pittsburgh and decided to give his course on Getting Started with DAX Formulas in Power BI, Power Pivot, and SSAS. Not quite what I wanted, but since I was curious about DAX, I decided to give it a try.

    Understanding DAX

    The intro is interesting. Eugene makes a good case for why DAX is important in the Microsoft stack. I tend to agree as I see this being incorporated into many products, including Excel. I’ve felt somewhat out of touch in that I haven’t known much about it and how it works. Even when I flip through our Stairway series, I’m somewhat skimming and haven’t really understood what it means.

    I think Eugene does a good job of trying to explain DAX as different than, but similar to Excel. Thinking of this as an expression language, rather than a query language, isn’t something I’ve considered. Maybe I’ve heard this, but it didn’t stick.

    He also lets me know this isn’t easy, which is what I’ve thought. I’ve seen Bill Pearson and Reza Rad talk some DAX, and it wasn’t quite clear to me. It felt clear when they were speaking, but not later. I’m hoping Gene teaches me a bit more in my office rather than in a 1 hour session.

    Going Through the Overview

    I went through the first few modules, which give you an overview and basic understanding. Eugene tries to explain the differences between DAX and SQL, which is a good way to approach the problem. Many of us are familiar with SQL, so this is helpful.

    The third module starts to get into data governance and where you use DAX with your data. This is interesting, and it’s a good look at what type of organization you deal with for data. How is your data managed, which is something that most companies don’t really have a good, or consistent, data governance strategy.

    One good thing is that Eugene explains  the different places where DAX is supported for queries. That’s good since I’ve been thinking of DAX as the Power BI language, but it’s not. It can be used in Excel with PowerPivot.

    The fourth module is the one where we start to understand column storage and the value this gives us. Still no DAX, but it’s a good module for analysts and relation people.

    In getting through 4 modules, no real technical stuff that’s helped me, but it’s given me a little better baseline.