Voice of the DBA

Category: Blog

  • DBAs, Organizing Your SQL Scripts in Git

    I wrote an article that was published on SQL Server Central on how to get your scripts into Git. This post adds a few more thoughts on how you might get started.

    This is part of my series on git that is designed to help people get started using version control in their daily work. You can see all my other posts on Git as well.

    Organizing My Scripts

    I showed a sample folder that looked like this, with a main area of scripts and then a subfolder for reports.

    2024-06-20 16_14_40-dbascripts

    As a DBA team, I want to ensure we all easily can find things. If we don’t have a lot of scripts, I might keep most in a single folder. However, if this becomes 3 or 40 scripts, it’s easy to make mistakes or have too many similar things.

    What I might organize things slightly better like this:

    2024-06-20 17_02_03-dbascripts

    Here I’ve moved the Diagnostic queries from Glenn Berry into their own folder. Those I might run more rarely, though I might update them more often. Getting them into their own folder lets me move them out of the way. You could organize those by version, but the names keep them separate, so I’d probably just keep them all there.

    I added a “ETL” folder for specific scripts related to that function. I might need those regularly, but this helps me find them. If I had different types of ETL stuff, like on-prem and AWS, or maybe different apps (“Sales DW” vs. “Inventory ETL”), I might put those in subfolders below there.

    I also renamed the who_is_active.sql to “common_who_is_active_scenarios” where I have some calls with specific parameters set.

    I didn’t do this, but looking at this, I’d probably add a “installation scripts” folder where I moved the sp_WhoIsActive.sql and other install versions of scripts into that location.

    What I’m trying to do is just get DBAs to easily and quickly find scripts without accidentally picking the wrong scripts. This helps in pressure situations and also helps onboard new team members.

    I didn’t show how to update and version scripts, but I’ll do that in a new SSC article.

  • SQL Saturday South Florida 2024 Powerpoint Decks

    Thanks to everyone who attended my sessions today at SQL Saturday South Florida. Here are the resources from today.

    Blogging for the Tech Professional

    Deck: BloggingfortheTechProfessional.pptx

    Get started with writing today. Use Word or Open Live Writer, save 10 posts offline, then set up a blog.

    Architecting Zero Downtime Deployments

    I always enjoy this talk and I hope you did. Here are the things you might need:

  • Not Selected for the PASS Data Community Summit 2024

    I got this in an email about a week ago from the PASS Data Community Summit.

    2024-06-19 10_16_28-Inbox - steve.jones@red-gate.com - Outlook

    There’s more to it, but essentially I submitted 3 talks (2 on deployments, 1 pro dev) and none were selected.

    It’s slightly disappointing, as it is a rejection, but it’s not really a rejection of me. It’s that the talks didn’t make the cut. I’ve spoken there before, and I have other engagements coming up at events. I’m also still going to the Summit and I’ll likely still have some speaking slot from Redgate.

    For others, this might be very disappointing, but it’s not a rejection of you as a speaker. It’s that there are only so many slots, and there is a lot of competition. The program committee is a volunteer one, and while the conference organizers review their selections, they don’t make many changes. I know because I was one of the final reviewers where we looked at the breakdown of sessions in different topic areas, the diversity, the experiences, and we really only made 3 changes out of a few hundred where we saw a gap.

    I don’t want to give too many specifics, but Grant noticed we had no Extended Event sessions in there, so we removed another DB Administration talk and added an xEvent one.

    This year had over 1,100 submissions for 108 slots. There are a few more slots for vendors and a small few for first time speakers specifically, but that is a lot of competition. My Pro Dev talk has been popular elsewhere, but it wasn’t better than the others that were selected. Same for my other submissions.

    They were good, just not good enough.

    I do get rejected by some events, as do most other speakers. I don’t know anyone that is picked 100% of the time.

    It’s OK. It doesn’t stop me from submitting, and it doesn’t mean I wouldn’t do a great job at this conference. It just means not this time.

    If you feel bad, that’s OK. Just keep submitting, working on your presentations, ask for feedback from others, and keep sharing your knowledge. You’ll get picked at another event.

  • A New Word: Addleworth

    addleworth – adj. unable to settle the question of whether you’re doing okay in life; feeling torn between conflicting value systems and moveable goalposts, which makes you long for someone to come along and score your progress in discrete and measurable units – points, dollars, friends, followers, or a grade point average – which may not clear up where you’re going, but would at least reassure you that you’re one step closer to getting there.

    This is certainly something I’ve felt, often with my financial future and career. I feel this when looking at my salary or my savings and wondering if I’m doing okay compared to others. Often, I’ve compared myself to others and tried to establish a comparative metric that helps me determine if I’m doing well.

    This used to be dollars, and for the most part, I’ve given up on this. Once in awhile I look at someone and think “could I be like them” or “should I try to do what they do” to achieve something similar, but I quickly look at my self of happiness, stress, and other ephemeral metrics to realize I have a great life and shouldn’t bother measuring whatever I’m observing.

    From the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows