Voice of the DBA

Category: Blog

Culture Differences: US v UK

This is a bit of an off topic post from the technical stuff, but there’s a bit of a tie-in, so stick with me.

I had to get a tire fixed this morning. I actually owned a replacement tire, so I just needed someone to mount it on the existing wheel (the existing tire needed to come off). I stopped by Discount Tire this morning in Parker, and I had a quick conversation with the salesman, Brian. He arranged for the service, even gave me a discount, and told me it would take about an hour.

At this point I knew I needed to do some work, and at 9am, I wanted some coffee. I mentioned this to Brian, who said, “It’s a long walk to get coffee.”

He noted that Starbucks was quite a distance for a walk. Certainly it was a hot day, approaching 85F as I exited the shop with my laptop, but a long walk?

My friends and colleagues in the UK would laugh at this. I had to go down a busy road, and it was warm, but 0.6mi is “long”? I think not. Certainly no navigational issues following the blue dotted path.

This struck me as strange as I walked along the road. Certainly I think lots of people in the US might see this as a long walk. They would perhaps ask the shop for a ride, or they’d stay in the store and skip coffee. I suspect that lots of people think any distance outside of the parking lot of an establishment might be seen as “long”.

Far too many of us in the US as lazy in this manner, not willing to move dozens, much less hundreds, of yards. I’ve seen people wait minutes for a close parking spot to a store, when there were plenty of parking spots seconds away.

I thought about this as I walked, and as I walked back. The thought bothered me a bit as I tried to answer some emails and check on SQLServerCentral. Why do we struggle with simple movement in the US? Are so many of us really wedded to cars that much? A summer morning is hot, but it’s a few minutes in the sun.

I was curious how far I traveled in terms of steps, so I checked my Fitbit before leaving Starbucks. It was around 3,100 steps for the day. I checked when I got in my car, and I was at 4,500 steps. That’s about 1,400 steps for a cup of coffee. Each way, of course, but just a mile.

When I think about how little we need to walk, it’s amazing. My job is worse than many in some ways. My meetings are at my desk. My commute is a few dozen steps. Getting lunch in the kitchen is maybe 50 steps. If I don’t make a concerted effort to move, I can easily spend a day at work and get to 6:00pm having traveled less than 2,000 steps.

That’s sedentary.

I do make an effort to exercise and move. Certainly I could do better with my diet, but I am at least attempting to move. That goal was one thing that kept me going on my running streak. I often felt refreshed and no matter how much time I’d spent in front of a computer, I at least ran a mile.

We can all make an effort to move a bit more, especially those of us that spend lots of time in front of a computer. Taking breaks, walking up and down stairs, parking far away, scheduling walking meetings at times, or just making sure we spend some time before/after work moving.

Many of you will have long lives, regardless of how you treat your body. Your career might not be affected at all by poor physical health. However the quality of your life is lower, in my opinion, if you aren’t taking care of yourself a bit.

In the past we often had daily exercise as we lived. We walked around, we had to work to grow our food, or transport it, or just to find social company. Today we can avoid much of that, but I’m not sure we should.

Find some exercise in the margins, find a sport you enjoy, or just take some long walks to contemplate life and enjoy your own, or a friend’s, company.

July 27, 2015
Get Away from the Heat and Learn some Database Version Control

I have enjoyed the trips I’ve made to New Orleans and Baton Rouge in the past. It’s a good getaway, stopping in the French Quarter for a few minutes before an easy drive up the road. However it’s warm, and I can’t ever get my wife or kids to come with me. For some reason, they don’t seem to enjoy the warm, August Baton Rouge weather. I, however, am looking forward to a jog around University Lake.

This might be the best time to run, but I’ll likely be going around when it’s sunnier, and a touch warmer.

However if you want to get out of the heat, perhaps you’d like to come learn about Database Version Control with Ike Ellis and me? Redgate Software has partnered with Crafting Bytes to deliver our workshop in Baton Rouge. We’ve put the workshops on sale, and only $100 for a full day of training.

What will we cover?

We’ll show you how to get your database in a Version Control System (VCS). We use Redgate’s tools, but the idea of using version control can be done in other ways. I’m running the labs, and you’ll see how you can keep track of all of your database DDL code, including Lookup data!

We are also covering some advanced features that the Redgate tools make easier. Things like branching, merging, and deployments. How many of you would love to know that development is done and we can deploy our changes like this:

I’ll show you how you can deploy your changes right from inside SSMS.

This is an in-depth workshop, covering way more than I could ever do at a SQL Saturday or conference. What’s more, we provide you with a VM and let you actually work through the skills we teach you. You will get real practice during the day to give you the confidence and practice for your own environment back at the office.

I hope to see you at either the workshop or SQL Saturday #423 in Baton Rouge.

July 24, 2015
My SQL Server Service Account Philosophy
Recently someone sent me a question about service accounts. They weren’t sure how they should go about setting accounts up for various instances and services in their environments. Specifically they asked me about having domain accounts, or accounts separate for services.

Note that I’ve managed SQL Server for years this way in environments up to hundreds of instances. I haven’t managed thousands, so there might be issues with this philosophy at scale.

Here’s how I view service accounts. In a short list, I try to manage things like this:
- Domain accounts for the SQL database engine and SQL Agent
- Separate accounts for all instances and all Agent services
- Long, complex, one-time passwords that aren’t stored.
This has worked well for me, providing separation of services so that password changes or security issues on one instance don’t affect other instances.

It’s also been scalable in that I rarely setup SQL Server instances. In most organizations I’ve worked in, we are adding a few instances a week at the most. The overhead to create two new accounts per instance (db engine and Agent) is minimal.

Note that I would also have a separate domain account for SSAS or other items I install.

With today’s rapid provisioning of machines through virtualized environments, I realize this isn’t necessarily a good hard and fast rule. If I expect an instance to be a production level instance and live for some period of time in the organization, I’d follow this philosophy.

However if I am bringing online development and test instances that may not be kept around permanently, I think the local service accounts are fine. These will probably handle your needs and are worth scripting into your VM/instance creation process.

I’ll add a few more thoughts on this across other posts, but there’s my idea in a nutshell.
July 23, 2015
Argenis Without Borders – v2

Last year at the PASS Summit, Kristen Benzel and Argenis Fernandez put on a fundraiser to raise money for Doctors Without Borders. It was very successful, bringing over $13,000 to the charitable work this organization does.

We had fun with it, with some great rainbow costumes that were displayed at the PASS Summit, including me.

This year, 2015, there’s a new campaign. Once again, we’re raising money for Doctors without Borders. The goal is $20k, but we’re already close to $1,000 raised. That means that Argenis will be dressed like Ted.

Halloween Steve

My costume has yet to be chosen. I’m not usually a Halloween person, but in this case I’ll make an exception. The last day of the PASS Summit this year is Halloween, so I’m thinking that’s the day to

However, I’m not sure what to commit to. Should I be a super hero? A classic horror look? What would make you donate a little to the campaign? I’m looking for a few ideas, thoughts, things that you think would bring a smile to your face, and the willingness to help raise some money for a great cause.

Donate today and post your costume suggestions below. Feel free to see if you can come up with something that might embarrass me.

July 21, 2015