Voice of the DBA

Category: Blog

Looking for More Storage

I got a new cell phone. Not big news, but it’s primarily because I need want more storage. It’s a little indulgence, but it doesn’t change my budget much, so I decided to just upgrade.

A couple years ago I moved to Google Fi. If you haven’t heard of it, Google decided to become a cell phone service provider. I think this was because of their Pixel devices, or maybe because Larry/Sergy just wanted to. Who knows.

In any case, they offered a few phones with their service. The attractive thing for me was that they charged $10/GB of data, prorating usage and capping costs at $60. That’s a good move, especially as I sometimes go over 6GB in a month of heavy travel. At home, I rarely break 3GB, which means I may pay $30 or less for data. I think my lowest has been a $22.50 bill for 2.25GB.

The other attractive thing was that they partnered with various providers to give no charge roaming around the world, using your existing plan. Not everywhere, but everywhere I go. This was a huge change from Verizon, which was a $10/day charge outside the US. That adds up quickly as I often have 5-10 day trips overseas. I’d gotten used to not using my phone, but that’s annoying, especially when trying to get directions.

In any case, they offered only a few devices as their phones used a multiple carrier roaming tech to hop across multiple carries. They use Sprint and TMobile in the US, and fortunately, they cover the ranch. At the time, I wanted a headphone jack and the Pixel XL was the best choice. Unfortunately it only had 32GB models for sale.

After a year and a half of that, I feel cramped. I’m constantly managing storage with all the pictures I take of family. Recently Google put the Pixel 3 and LG phones on sale, plus they offered a service credit. Since I still want to headphone jack, I settled on a 64GB LG G7, which will end up costing me about 5 months of extra charges for the device after credits and sale.

Plus I can add a micro SD card to the device. Since I’m thinking to get a 128GB card, I guess that’s 6 more months of payments

February 11, 2019
Pro SQL Server Linux–Moving to Linux

As part of my learning goals for 2018, I wanted to work through various books. This is part of my series on Pro SQL Server on Linux from Bob Ward.

It’s not until Chapter 10 that we get back to Linux specifics. Most of the chapters in the middle are general SQL Server items that are good to know, but not are useful for experienced SQL Serve professionals. They’re worth skimming as you might learn some things you didn’t about the features.

In Chapter 10, the focus is migrating to Linux. Bob presents a number of options, including one I hadn’t heard of: the DEA. This is the Database Experimentation Assistant, and I hadn’t heard of it. I don’t do a lot of migrations as I start and stop on SQL Server, but this allows you to do some A/B testing of upgrades. I’m sure it’s not perfect, but that’s something that is definitely needed.

Most of the chapter is about versions, from Oracle, or from PostgreSQL. The Oracle parts walks through the migration, while the PostgreSQL part tries to show where features in SQL Server exist or don’t in PostgreSQL. In a number of places, Bob found projects that provide some functionality in PostgreSQL that is in SQL Server, but didn’t test things.

The last chapter of the book deals with containers, and that was one of the more interesting things for me to read. I’ve been on a bit of a container kick, digging in more and more, so I was curious to see how Bob described and talked about the technology. I think he did a good job, but I still think a couple courses I’ve watched on Pluralsight from Nigel Poulton really covered this well, so perhaps I glossed over this a bit.

I liked that Bob includes lots of code and links to help you get started, so if you read this book, spend time on containers. They’re the future, and for now, Linux containers rule.

Overall Review

I learned a few things about SQL Server from the book, but far too much of it was basics and beginning SQL Server stuff, not Linux stuff. It was a good refresher, and I’m not disappointed in the time I spent, but I was hoping for more stories and more Linux.

The lesson really is that SQL Server is SQL Server, with few differences on the platform. As Bob mentions, you shouldn’t care about the platform and just pick what works.

The basics of SQL Server did make this hard to read, and as a result, I started strong at the end of December and hit a lull for almost two weeks where I wasn’t motivated to skim through basic T-SQL, security, etc. I realized around the 20th that I was running out of time and crammed a bit in.

If you don’t have a lot of experience with SQL Server, this is good. If you know SQL Server, but want to know Linux differences, I might recommend digging into some of the more specific Linux blogs, or the SQLServerCentral Stairway series.

February 8, 2019
Versions of Stored Procedures
I never knew this, but stored procedures have versions.

I was browsing the CREATE PROCEDURE doc page, and stumbled upon this item. In the beginning part of a stored procedure definition, after the name, there is a section that starts with

; number

Hmmm, I read the entry and it says the number is an integer that is used to group procedures of the same name. There is a note this is a deprecated feature that may be dropped, should not be used for new work, and old work ought to be modified, but it was interesting, so I tried it.

First, create a proc:
```
CREATE PROCEDURE dbo.GetOne

AS 

SELECT 1

GO
```
Once this is done, we can execute it and it works. Now, let’s modify this. I’ll use this code:
```
CREATE PROCEDURE GetOne;2

AS 

SELECT 'One'

GO
```
You can see these will have different results. If I execute them, I do so with the name, including the optional integer.

In SSMS, there is only one object listed.

If I drop the procedure, both are gone.

I’m not completely sure where I’d use this feature, and I can see not investing in it, but I found this fascinating. All these years of writing stored procedures and I learned something new this week.
February 6, 2019
Learning for Feb
By the time you read this, I’ll have decided, but I just finished the first book and need to pick another. This post is more for me than anyone else, helping me to sit down and think for a minute.

I don’t have any pressing need to work on any of the other books for work or career. It’s more that I’m interested in various topics, so I need to pick a direction. I’m also cognizant of the future and which books I want to go through.

Recap

Here are the books I purchased and plan to read this year:
The question is, what’s next?

I’m really not sure, but I do know that I’ll be relatively less busy in February, really busy in March, and April will likely be like January. As a result, I want an easier book in March.

The challenge for me is understanding what’s easy and hard. I think the Azure/Xamarin one will be hard as I’ll need to practice skills that aren’t useful or tangential to work. The Power BI stuff is likely the opposite. The Python stuff is probably in the middle.

The Plan

My thoughts right now are that I need to research for a couple days. It’s Jan 31 as I write this, and I’m on vacation for a couple days. That’s both good and bad. Bad because I want to get away, good because I can find some spare time to just read and no do.

With that in mind, I’m going to read a chapter of 3-4 books and then decide in which direction to go. By the time this publishes Monday, I should have made a choice, but I’ll be busy working on other stuff, so I won’t get to update this post.

The four to get through a chapter on are:
Wish me luck.
February 4, 2019