Voice of the DBA

Category: Blog

  • Daily Coping 1 Oct 2020

    I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral 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.

    Today’s tip is to release yourself from inner demands and self-criticism.

    I know a lot of technical people that aim high in their lives. They want great code, they want smooth running servers, they want financial prosperity, they want bigger and better jobs, and success for their families. All things that can help drive someone forward in their lives.

    However, it can be detrimental to your mental health to compare yourself to others at a point in time and evaluate your success by theirs.

    I was thinking about this after hearing a friend talk about the challenges of recording a session for an upcoming conference. In this case, the person asked if I was getting a green screen, new mic, or any other improvement to my setup for the event. This individual felt pressure because so many speakers have been talking about OBS, StreamDeck, and other devices.

    I wasn’t,  and I’m not. I certainly could improve things, but I need to decide what matters for me. I think what some people are doing is interesting, and I do think there might be ways to better build content and engagement for audiences, but I’m not driven to match what others do.

    I try hard to set some goals, make plans, and work towards them, but I recognize that things go wrong, life gets in the way, and I need to both acknowledge when I make mistakes and can do better, while also accepting I may miss some milestones. It doesn’t do my any good to beat myself up inside.

    Two quotes I keep in mind here:

    • Man plans and god laughs – Yiddish saying
    • Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans – John Lennon

    The latter reminds me to keep moving on, and do things. Not just plan.

  • Running Express Edition in a Container–#SQLNewBlogger

    Another post for me that is simple and hopefully serves as an example for people trying to get blogging as #SQLNewBloggers.

    Recently I was looking through the forums and someone had a question on JSON and the Express edition of SQL Server 2019. I was sure JSON worked, but I also didn’t have Express set up on my machine. I decided a container would be a quick way to test this.

    I’ve started lots of containers, but I rarely do anything other than the Developer edition. I know you can set the edition, but didn’t know how, so I had to look it up. This post covers the quick way to do this.

    Environment Variables

    There are a lot of environment variables that we can use to configure containers, and SQL Server in particular. There are two that are required:

    • ACCEPT_EULA
    • SA_PASSWORD (or MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD)

    These two need to be supplied to start the container. Beyond that, you can add others that are useful for you.

    To run as Express, you will want to MSSQL_PID variable, which can be set to any of these:

    • Evaluation
    • Developer
    • Express
    • Web
    • Standard
    • Enterprise
    • A product key

    For my situation, this means I run Express like this:

    docker run -e "ACCEPT_EULA=Y" -e "SA_PASSWORD=password" -e "MSSQL_PID=Express" -p 51433:1433 --name express2019 -h express2019 -d mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2019-CU7-ubuntu-16.04

    This starts up a new container, and I can connect, where I’ll see the correct version.

    2020-09-14 11_15_49-SQLQuery2.sql - .,51433.master (sa (55))_ - Microsoft SQL Server Management Stud

    SQLNewBlogger

    It took me about 5 minutes to get this working, and then it was a question of writing this post and capturing an image. I had the code, because I’d just used it.

    Overall, a good way to show a few things about containers and SQL Server, and a skill that an interviewer might ask about.

  • Daily Coping 30 Sep 2020

    I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral 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.

    Today’s tip is to ask a trusted friend to tell you what they like about you.

    Not an easy thing. Asking someone what they like about you. Easier to ask family, or a partner, but that’s not part of this coping. I don’t have a lot of really close friends, so I had to think about who I’d ask and haven’t necessarily had a lot of contact with lately.

    I got this back: I like that you are calm, wise, thoughtful, efficient, friendly, and fun.

    Kind words that make me smile.

  • I Want PASS to Survive

    I want PASS to survive.

    I can say that unequivocally, because this organization has been a part of my career, my job, and my life for twenty years. Many of my fondest memories, my widest smiles, and my deepest thoughts have been connected in some way to the PASS organization.

    I want them to survive.

    I’m also angry at them. The board, C&C, past directors, the whole last decade because of the way I think things have been run. I have my own demons here, with how I feel I’ve been poorly treated by the organization in the past. I am trying to set that aside, and focus on what’s important.

    We need PASS to survive this year, which means we pull together and push forward. Let’s make this the best Summit we can.

    There are plenty of people complaining about PASS, and the way the Summit is run. I do not think I could have done things better than anyone else has. Perhaps I could have, but I certainly could have managed things worse. I don’t know what data is inside this organization, or why decisions are made. Maybe there should be more transparency and accountability, but those are issues to examine after another 60 days. This year is a black swan event, one of a few that PASS has survived. Whether this organization should have been better prepared is also a discussion for late November.

    I truly don’t think that anyone is trying to make bad decisions or upset others. Making decisions is hard, and I know there is a lot of pressure on everyone. I also think that it’s up to each of us to hold everyone accountable regularly, something that hasn’t been done often enough, or widely enough. Again, we can discuss and debate that later in the year, and certainly these are things anyone running for the board needs to address, but remember that a lot of things have gone wrong this year for everyone. At home, and in business. Certainly at PASS.

    This Summit is a great opportunity to learn something, and get access to the content for a full year. There are some great pre-cons at a competitive price. Booking two of these and adding the Summit is a price that many of us would pay for two days of training. You can learn a lot in two days, and then access the rest of the content for a full year.

    You also support PASS. I want them to survive.

    I don’t want PASS to continue to operate in the same manner next year. I don’t want the same levels of accountability, transparency, financial disclosure or protocol. I want all that to be better. I think everyone involved wants that, and they want change.

    For now, I want PASS to survive, and I hope you do, too.

    If you’ve enjoyed a past Summit or a SQL Saturday or a virtual group, think about attending the Summit this year. Get some training, reconnect with those of us in the same industry, and get inspired by all the possibilities of what you can do with data in your job.