Voice of the DBA

Category: Blog

  • From Manual to DevOps at the Data Community Summit

    This year the annual PASS Data Community Summit is hybrid, both in-person and virtual. It’s exciting to have this coming back and I look forward to seeing people in Seattle if you can come.

    You can register today and save with these codes:

    • $200 off the in-person, 3 day conference in Seattle: SJSUMMIT93

    I’m doing a precon on the journey from a manual process to an automated DevOps one. So many customers I work with are dealing with these issues, trying to decide how to move from their existing process, whatever it is, to a more reliable, repeatable, automated one. With Grant and a few fellow Redgaters, we’ll be starting from nothing, as many of us do. Then every 30-ish minutes we’ll be deploying our code in whatever process we’ve built to that point.

    Hopefully, this will be fully automated with a DevOps style flow by the end of the day (fingers crossed).

    We’ll be using the Redgate Flyway Enterprise suite of products, talking about the concepts that are useful to help you build and deploy database code in a team.

    Join us, or one of the other great pre-cons and I’ll see you in Seattle.

  • EV Charging Challenges

    I saw an article on the state of EV charging and what Ford is doing. First, I think it’s great that Ford (and others) are trying to tackle this. I don’t love the idea of each manufacturer doing this, though if they have interoperable stations, that’s not bad.

    Second, this is one of the reasons I got a Tesla. Before I had an EV, I worried about needing to charge when I was driving around. This “range anxiety” had me stop considering the Polestar and Mach-E because I worried about finding a compatible, working charger.

    This is part of a series that covers my experience with a Tesla Model Y.

    Stats

    Now that I’ve had the Tesla for over a year, this what my charging stats have been:

    2022-09-15 09_17_36-Charging Stats - Grafana — Mozilla Firefox

    I’ve tried two non-Tesla chargers and gotten no charge from them. They showed:

    • incredibly long charging times
    • never got through the handshake to start charging in 5 minutes.

    In both cases, I moved a bit further away to a Tesla Supercharger. Neither was a crisis, but it was inconvenient.

    However, since those experiences, I’ve only rarely needed Supercharging and those were on trips to the mountains. The Silverthorne charger was needed, but the Idaho Springs one was for peace of mind. I’d likely have gotten home, but didn’t want to chance it and had time.

    A New Mindset

    Perhaps the most interesting thing about owning an EV is that I essentially have a full tank of fuel every morning. I plug in and charge at night, and I’m full. That means I have my 300miles of range every day.

    That’s unlike a gas car where I often wouldn’t think about range because if I started the day with 1/4 tank, I’d just get gas somewhere. Rarely was my tank full, though we usually try to stay well above a 1/4 tank at the ranch.

    Now I have a full set of fuel every day (well, usually 80%, so 250miles) and I really never drive further. And I drive all over the Denver area on a regular basis, especially during coaching season. I’m never really concerned about range anymore, though I do keep an eye on it, same as I do for gas fuel.

    That’s still slightly strange to me.

    Battery Degradation

    Some people have worried about battery degradation. In fact, I’ve seen lots of posts in the Tesla groups I’m a part of about people seeing some low degradation. There are also no shortage of random FUD complaints from people who don’t have EVs, but hate them

    In fact, I ran things down deliberately the other day to 11% ( I was hoping for sub-10) and then charged to 94%. I’ve heard that it’s a good idea to periodically do this and then recalibrate the battery. This is supposed to help with range.

    2022-09-15 09_41_23-Charges - Grafana — Mozilla Firefox

    I don’t know if this helps because the random watching I do of estimated range still seems to be what I had last year. When I got the Tesla, I believe the range was 315miles. If I look at today, I have the charge at 81%. If I switch to mileage, I see 254 miles. If I take 315*0.81, I get 255, so all seems good.

    Just to test, I charged to 100%. When I do that, I see 328 miles of range. No degradation for me.

    Overall, I think electric cars will dominate in the future, but not everywhere. That makes me wonder if fuel will start to become a challenge at some point and people needing fuel find themselves in the place where people struggling to find a working charger are today.

  • Daily Coping 21 Oct 2022

    Today’s coping tip is to do something constructive to improve a difficult situation.

    My life is amazing, but there are certainly some difficult times. Sometimes at work, sometimes at home, but I have been trying to not focus on the situation and instead look to the future and move forward.

    My wife runs a horse training and boarding business and has a few people working for her. That’s good, because it means that I don’t have to do much with horses on a regular basis other than take pictures and enjoy ranch life.

    Recently she had an employee quit, which is a burden on a weekly basis. If there isn’t anyone else to feed horses then she has to do it. That takes time and impacts her lesson and training schedule. If she’s too busy, then one of the kids often helps out. I’m, in general, the emergency person.

    However, my kids are working their own jobs, and my wife has stress, so I’ve offered a few days lately to pick up a few hours of work. I can adjust my schedule and work at night, so I’ve been taking some time this week to feed horses during midday and handle chores.

    I hope I don’t need to do this for too many more days, but I am happy to help her during a difficult time.

    I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQL Server Central newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag.

  • Daily Coping 20 Oct 2022

    Today’s coping tip is to avoid blaming yourself or others. Find a helpful way forward.

    I’ve been busy lately. My days are jammed up with a number of presentations I’m working on for the Data Community Summit. In addition, I still have plenty of “normal” work running SQL Server Central and SQL Saturday. Then, I’m trying to manage this around travel. September had me away from home for about 21 days. October is scheduled to be 11.

    It would be easy to blame someone else for pushing some of these commitments onto me or adding things to my schedule. It’s easy to be mad at myself for scheduling in extra trips or time during trips as a vacation when I’m busy.

    Better to note the things that haven’t worked well or cause too much stress and try to better manage the future. For now, I need to move forward, so I’m trying to focus on individual tasks and march forward.

    I’m also asking for help. I am asking others to send me reminders or meetings when they have asked me to commit to something. I’m asking for them to also tackle small parts of things where they can, especially around organizing and coordinating when I’m just a part of their particular milestone.

    While I can and do manage my schedule, I agree to, and get told to, do various things. I’m also sometimes doing this on the road, so having others help me prevent problems is helpful.

    I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQL Server Central newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag.