Voice of the DBA

Author: way0utwest

  • The Hybrid Cloud

    When various vendors started to push the idea of using the cloud for computing infrastructure, the focus was on moving all your systems to a hosted solution. It didn’t matter if you were interested in IaaS, SaaS, or PaaS solutions, there press from salespeople and even some technology professionals was for a complete migration. Put all your infrastructure in AWS, Azure, or some other place and your systems will run great.

    Over time we’ve started to realize that moving to the cloud isn’t as simple as just renting a new box or service and there may be plenty of work to get settled. Even then, there are some limitations or restrictions, either technical or otherwise that might make the cloud a poor choice. Security and compliance are often reasons to not move, but certainly there are also challenges with technology mismatches between on-premises and cloud platforms as well.

    One of the very interesting things that I saw demonstrated a few years ago was the idea of the Azure Stack. The idea behind this technology is that a hybrid cloud can be built, with a single management view. Both the Azure cloud and local resources are combined together and managed as a single entity, with the choice of whether to run workloads on the vendor’s infrastructure or your own on-premises machines. There are other versions of this, for example, with OpenStack working in conjunction with AWS.

    There are many advantages to this, including the ability to limit certain workloads from bursting or moving from one environment to the other. One reason for this might be compliance. An organization might be required to keep some resources off of public networks, for example, the need to ensure that certain data is domiciled in a particular country. The reverse could also be true, with the desire to use a secure public portion of the Azure stack as their system might be certified in ways that your local infrastructure may not be.

    I think the idea of cloud resources, managed, moved, and scaled as needed is a great one. It doesn’t matter if this is all in your data center, all in the cloud, or both. Working this way allows a much more flexible use of any resource, wherever its located. Cutting edge organizations already do a small portion of this with ESX or Hyper-V hypervisors, software configured storage networks, or other software configured resources that can be reallocated on demand. Azure Stack, OpenStack, and other frameworks are a great way to start to leverage the cloud, but in a controlled manner that continues to use any capital investments you’ve made.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 4.1MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and Libsyn.

  • Redgate University is Growing

    There isn’t a degree to be gained, but you can get a lot of information about Redgate products at Redgate University. This is the place to learn how to best use the products. This is a work in progress and we’ve started with a few of the more popular items, but we should grow the list over time.

    I’m in a few of the SQL Monitor classes, helping to teach them. The classes are designed to be short and focused on one topic. If you watch them in order, you’ll get a flow of how to use the product and what features are available.

    This is a great idea to help someone bone up on their tools and learn to get the most out of them. Even if you use some of our products regularly, you might want to skip through the modules and see what we cover. I’m sure there are things for you to learn.

    I think I’m on the hook to record a few later this year, but we’ll see how this goes. These are quick to record, but there is a lot of prep to get material ready.

    If there are things you’d like to see, either within one of the courses up there or in another product, let us know. The email for ideas is: university@red-gate.com

  • Discussing Database DevOps with Gene Kim

    I’m really excited for this webinar. Register today for the Sept 25 webinar  to learn more about the 2018 State of DevOps report.

    I read The Phoenix Project a few years back and I’ve been following Gene Kim as one of the main researchers and advocates of DevOps ever since. I think his work is amazing and I’ve enjoyed watching him present online during conferences and webinars. I never thought I would get the chance to talk one on one, much less host a webinar.

    This year’s State of DevOps report, from DevOps Research and Assessment (DORA), sponsored by Google Cloud, is near and dear to my heart. For the first time, there is a section on databases. Redgate helped sponsor the report as well and was able to get Gene Kim to do a webinar to discuss the entire report, but with a focus on databases.

    At least, that’s my focus. I’ll get the chance to ask Gene questions as well, mostly focused on the data aspect of software delivery, which I think is too often left out. Too many software developers are worried about the database and haven’t included it in the their DevOps world. That’s changing, and join me to see how.

    Don’t forget to register and I’ll see you on the 25th.

  • Watch SQL in the City Streamed September 2018

    I’m over in the UK and we have SQL in the City Streamed tomorrow. This is our September edition, and Grant, Kathi, and myself are prepping today.

    We also have a special guest this time, Rob Richardson. Rob is a fantastic software developer and fellow MVP. I’m looking forward to seeing his new talk on the Microsoft stack and automated deployments.

    Check out the registration pages and schedule as we’ve got a variety of talks. This time we have a bit of Redgate focus, but many of these talks are more generic, useful technical talks that you will find informative.

    Register, block out your calendar, and join us tomorrow, Sept 5, for the next SQL in the City Streamed.