Voice of the DBA

Category: Blog

Becoming an MVP
“Climb the mountain to see the world, not be seen by the world.” – from Tim Ford.

This past July 1 was the renewal date for a number of Microsoft MVPs. The program has changed in the last year, moving from a quarterly nomination/renewal to a monthly award. The first of every month moving forward will see new MVPs awarded. All MVPs are now renewed on July 1.

For existing MVPs, we had a bit of a change, and some of us were up for renewal this year, and some next year. I happened to move from my Jan 1 date to next year, so that’s when I’ll find out if I am going to be recognized by Microsoft again.

There were a few surprising changes last week, when a few people were not renewed as MVPs. I expect that the bar for being an MVP has been raised, with so many more individuals participating in blogging, speaking, software, and more. The level of community participation in 2015 might not have been enough in 2016 to be renewed.

How do I Become an MVP?

“Climb the mountain to see the world, not be seen by the world.”

As the quote notes, you should tackle the challenge without any concern about whether or not the world, or Microsoft in this case, notices.

Help the community publicly. You can do this in many ways:
- Write technical articles
- Speak at technical events
- Organize events
- Build OSS software
- Answer questions online
There are any number of ways to be a community person, but do so because you want to. Become the best technical community person you can, and you won’t be sorry.

If you meet some bar, and are nominated (feel free to ask others to nominate you), then you may be awarded, but you should help others because you want to. Not because you expect to be repaid with an MVP award.

Help others because you want to help others, not because someone will see you helping.

Once an MVP, always an MVP

The people recognized by Microsoft are chosen based on their community contributions in a period of time. However, these are smart people who are capable, helpful, and friendly. They will always be an MVP to me, and likely always willing to help. They continue to learn, teach, and expand their knowledge of technology.

They can always remember that they were recognized as an MVP by Microsoft, even if they aren’t today.
July 6, 2017
SSoL–Exiting Root
I don’t think most of us need to know Linux, but if you end up managing a system, it’s good to have a little idea of how to get around. This is a short series of posts as I remember the skills I used to have back in university.

There are times you need to execute a bunch of commands as root. Rather than sudo x, sudo y, sudo z, you might just sudo –i to change to root.

For example, I often will do this:
```
sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install mssql-server

sudo systemctl start mssql-server
```
I could just run those as root. However, when I’m done, how do I get back to my normal user? It’s been a long time, so I had to look it up. I wrote this post so I’ll remember since I don’t use Linux daily.

Type
```
Exit
```
That’s it.
July 5, 2017
Replication Silliness
I wrote an editorial asking about things that needed to be done to improve replication. There are plenty of things that need help, but as I was testing some replication, I got this the other day.

I am trying to setup a secure home network (other than the same password for a few services to make life easier). I have firewalls running and open specific ports for SQL Server. In this case, I have multiple instances on this machine, so I opened a port for a named instance. I didn’t want the SQL Browser running, and connected with the port.

These are all valid connections for the server:
- Atlas,51433
- Atlas\SQL2016,51433
- Atlas.home.xxx.net,51433
- Atlas\SQL2016
- 192.168.1.201, 51433
- 192.168.1.201\SQL2016, 51433
Guess which ones work? Only the name/instance.

Perhaps I’m doing something wrong, or there’s a setting, but this is a bit silly that valid connection strings with ports don’t seem to work with replication.

Especially after seeing this:
July 3, 2017
DevOps Basics–Staging and Committing Changes

Another post for me that is simple and hopefully serves as an example for people trying to get blogging as #SQLNewBloggers. This is also a part of a basic series on git and how to use it.

In the course of normal work, you’ll change your code files. Git requires that you specify those changes that you want to commit, and those that you don’t. This means I can make changes to a few files, but not commit all those changes.

For example, let’s say that I add a couple files to my repo. I’ll add the Tables/Log.sql and Views/LogView.sql to my repo. This will give me a status in git that shows these are new files. In this case, I see the folders as they are new as well.

If I add these files as being tracked, I’ll use “git add Tables” to add that folder and file. I get a new status.

Here my Log.sql file is being tracked (and the folder) as changes that are staged to be committed. If I commit now, I’ll get just that file added, but not Views\LogView.sql.

Staged and Changed

There is one strange thing I’ve run into, at least, strange to me. If I stage my Views folder, I’ll get this:

Now I’ll change the LogView.sql file, removing the SELECT * and adding columns. When I check the status, I now see the file in both the staged and unstaged areas.

This is allowed, but if I commit, I’ll get the original version of LogView.sql as it existed when I ran the git add command. See below that after my commit, I still see the modified file.

If I add and commit that file, I can use git log to see the actual changes. See the line in red with the – is the original line, while the green line with + is the change.

Git add and git commit are the main ways you’ll commit files. If you have issues with a GUI client, then this is a good way for you to debug and clean up your repo. Knowing the command line is always the best way to truly understand what is happening.

June 29, 2017