Voice of the DBA

Author: way0utwest

The Linux CoC

This is a busy time of year for me, with lots of conferences and other events taking place. It’s busy most years, but this past October was especially busy in my life. I’ve been in New York, London, and Hong Kong during the month, which is quite a spread of time zones. It’s been a mix of work and pleasure, and I agreed to all these trips, so I can’t complain. In any case, it’s both an exciting set of trips and a daunting set, and I don’t know if I’d want to do that again.

In my travels, I noticed some press about a new Linux Kernel Code of Conduct. This is a change from the original Code of Conflict that Linus Torvalds published. I’m not sure he adhered to his own words from the reports I’ve seen over the years about his comments to developers. In any case, he signed off, though not everyone likes the new code of conduct. I don’t know enough about the issues, but I do realize that not everyone behaves well towards others, especially in this business.

In any case, I go to lots of conferences. I meet lots of people, and see lots of different situations play out between attendees, organizers, venues, and speakers. For the most part people are fairly well behaved and treat each other respectfully. That’s not always the case, which is why many conferences and organizations have adopted some Code of Conduct that should apply to those that attend events, are members, etc. I do think this is a good idea, as it gives us a common framework where we can evaluate behavior as well as debate future changes.

Last week PASS has their annual Summit, with their own Anti-Harassment policy. While I haven’t observed any actions that would violate the policy, I have had friends report they have experienced these types of behavior. I’ve had friends ask for an escort over concerns of potential behavior. It’s sad that this happens in the world, but it’s a reality. I’m glad that organizations are trying to move in a direction that protects those that feel harassed or threatened.

It’s likely that there will be overreactions, reports of misunderstandings, and similar issues. Certainly some people want the freedom to behave as they see fit, where they don’t believe they are doing anything wrong. I understand that, but ultimately I also believe that it would be better to have a few people investigated or thrown out of a conference for no reason than have others suffer because they aren’t believed. I’m here for any of you that are struggling with abuse, and I hope others are as well.

I hope that we learn to live by the famous quote from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure: be excellent to each other. If some of you can’t do that, then at least learn to live by Wheaton’s Law.

Steve Jones

The Voice of the DBA Podcast

Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 3.6MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and Libsyn.

November 14, 2018
Fundamentals

Volleyball season is approaching. Practice started last week for the team that I’m coaching this year, and I’m excited. I look forward to teaching and competing with a new group of athletes each year. I’ll also look forward to a more regular schedule and a bit less traveling for a few months.

In preparation for this season, I’ve been doing some learning, some reading and watching, trying to improve my abilities, something I’ve done for a few years. One of the books I completed recently was one on John Wooden and called Wooden: A Coaches Life. This was a look at his life, as player and coach, with some of the descriptions and principles that embodied his work as a college basketball coach.

There were interesting stories and topics in the book, but one of the core items emphasized in the book was Coach Wooden’s emphasis on the fundamentals of the game. He stressed this with his players, asking them to work on the basics and perfect them more than on any complex plays or situations. I tend to focus on the basics when I coach as well, hoping to train players to be good at their jobs, trusting them to react to new situations.

This feels like advice that is applicable to a data professional as well, especially in the era of new features and functions that continually expand on the capabilities of the Microsoft data platform. While graph structures and containers and Azure Data Factory and Big Data Clusters are amazing new technologies, there is still a need to have good, solid fundamental skills for a SQL Server system. We still expect anyone working in those areas knows how to backup a database, how to write good T-SQL, how to set security for objects, and more.

If you want to specialize, that’s great. Perhaps you love BI or HA or some other aspect of working with the SQL Server data platform. Just keep in mind that the fundamentals are important, no matter what your job. You ought to be very competent at handling any of those tasks that we would teach a junior DBA in their first year on the job. Once you know those, you can move on to more specific items. If you don’t know those, be sure you include those as part of your learning along with more niche topics.

Steve Jones

The Voice of the DBA Podcast

Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 3.4MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and Libsyn.

November 13, 2018
T-SQL Tuesday #108

It’s that time of month, and this is a good topic as it relates to career learning. I’m a big fan of improving your career, so I like this topic. The invitation is from Mala, one of the people I look forward to seeing each year at various events.

Non SQL Server Tech

At heart, I’m something of a data person, though I dabble in various other technologies at times. This year, I made it a point to work on learning two new technologies, one of which was outside of SQL Server. Python was what I chose and I ended up spending some time on various Python courses for about 5 months. Then life and work got in the way.

I still want to spend a bit more time on Python, but I also recognize that I need a new challenge, so I’m going to pick something else for 2019. For me, this will be CosmosDB.

I think CosmosDB is a neat technology and has some really good things inside of it, but I really don’t know enough about it. I’ve had minor exposure to NoSQL structures, but not really enough to know how well I’d use them for a project.

The Plan

For 2019, or at least for the first quarter(ish), I want to port a database from SQL Server to CosmosDB and play with the differences. I have a few sample ones, but I’ve been compiling a database of some SQL Saturday data and want to use that as a test. I’ll work on moving the data to the different CosmosDB structures, likely a document structure and a graph structure, and gain some experience as to how these work.

I hope to build a simple REST website that accesses these databases, which should also let me compare the differences for data access and note where one structure might work better than the other.

I’ll set a reminder for the end of each month in 2019 (Jan-Apr) to evaluate where I am.

November 13, 2018
Random Pix from the 2018 PASS Summit

A few memories from me. First, a beautiful late arrival view.

My first session feels a little lonely

It started to fill a bit later

A few selfies, Angela

Mala

Bert

David

Brent

TJ

and my view during a break after Thursday’s sessions.

Where’s my room?

It’s a wrap

After Friday, a nice walk out the convention center and outside

Until next year.

November 12, 2018