Voice of the DBA

Category: Editorial

  • Dread or Desire

    Today is the first business day of the new year. We’ve made it, and we’ve left 2020 behind, though I suspect some of the challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic will remain for some time. Vaccinations are occurring, but there are a lot of people that need them, and until the world finds many people protected, I don’t know how back to normal things will get.

    One thing I wonder about is the business office. Those of us working in technology may not have been too disrupted with the shift to remote work, but we also didn’t have a choice. Recently I saw an article, Dreading or dreaming of a return to the office in 2021, that piqued my interest. I wonder for many of you, do you desire or dread the return to an office?

    I suspect the majority of people want some sort of hybrid situation, a few days in the office and a few days at home. Among the friends I’ve asked, office time ranges from 4-5 days a week in the office to 1-2 days a month. I don’t know many people that never want to go to the office, and relatively few that want to be there full time.

    Personally I’ve been in the hybrid situation for years. I work most days at home, usually spend about 40 days on the road in various other locations and then get to the Redgate office for about 12-15 days a year. That works out well for me, and it lets me keep in touch with people, build bonds and trust, and enjoy life at home. I hope that I’ll be able to get back to the UK in 2021, but who knows how life will change.

    I do think many businesses will look to use their offices in some way. As they do, I know that there will be another period of disruption and adjustment for employees. From having others around to the commute time to the finding the things I need (either digital or physical items), I would suspect that it will take weeks for everyone to feel comfortable again. I also wonder if most of us will be happy with the way our situation works out.

    Steve Jones

  • Building a Better Community

    The demise of the PASS organization is just a few weeks away, and if you want to watch or save any content, be sure you get moving. The sites go dark on 15 Jan 2021, so time is short. I found I could right click and save a number of the PASS Pro videos, as I’d like to see what content was produced by some of my friends and fellow community members.

    As we look forward, I am hopeful and excited that the community will continue to come together and find ways to grow and share with each other. Already DataSaturdays are up and events coming. Even if my bid for SQLSaturday.com falls short, I’m not remotely worried. We will continue to grow and run events that help the SQLFamily share, grow, and bond. The excitement and growth of the community across the last two decades was facilitated by PASS, but I think it’s really the people in the community that have done the work of building an amazing movement, especially around SQL Saturday.

    I saw this past week a number of posts that look to the future. I liked Brent’s question of what you might want in a community. Most of the respondents note that content is the number one goal, which I agree with. When Andy, Brian, and I started SQL Saturday, we did so with the idea that many people don’t have the time or resources to go to the Summit (or SQL Bits, SQL Intersection, etc.). We wanted to provide a way that most people could get the conference experience and get inspired and excited. It worked better than we ever imagined, and I’m confident that many people will find ways to do so in the future. Already, with events like GroupBy, New Stars of Data, Data Relay and DataGrillen, there is plenty of enthusiasm in the community.

    We are having discussions about how to replicate some of the success with Data Saturdays already. There is guidance for speakers and user groups. If you are a part of any of those, ensure that you are preparing for things to change in a few weeks. Look to the future, and find a way to help your community grow in 2021.

    Steve Jones

  • Looking Back at 2020

    In some sense I hate to do this. 2020 was a black swan event for the world, with a pandemic that caused changes all across the world in ways that many of us might never have thought possible.

    For the data platform, perhaps one of the more startling changes was the demise of PASS. This organization has been a part of my life for the last 20 years, and while I’ve had my disagreements, I think they have brought the SQL Server and related communities closer than they might otherwise have been. I hope that any of you that have had dealings with PASS or been to an event will wish the best for the staff at HQ. Anika, Audrey, Craig, Erick, Leeza, Marcella, and others have really helped the community over the years, and I hope I get to see them in the future.

    We didn’t get a new version of SQL Server, though we got a number of cumulative updates. We also had quite a few updates to their tools, SSMS and ADS. The latest releases included a welcome change. You can now avoid installing ADS with SSMS if you run the installation from the command line. This was something requested and voted on by many people. Glad Microsoft is listening.

    The other big thing that changed for many of us was the way we work. Our work environments dramatically changed, in a way that many managers would not have thought could be effective. Many organizations transitioned to remote work in March or April of 2020 and are still embracing the format. A few large tech companies will give people the option to work from home forever, though forever might be changed at some point. Some, like Microsoft, have picked dates next year, which I think is good. Choosing June or July makes sense, as it gives some stability for those with children.

    At Redgate we went from requiring most people to be in the office to embracing a remote-first approach from this time onward. Lots of tech professionals have known this was possible, but haven’t had the chance until the pandemic forced this upon us. I’ve seen many people and groups thrive, which shows us that the office might not be quite as important as we thought. We also changed our attitude from coping with this change to thriving under this new paradigm. I don’t know what this will mean, and I certainly look forward to the chance to go back to Cambridge, but I’m not sure when that will be possible.

    From the database perspective, much of 2020 felt somewhat like a blur. We had breaches, we had minor patches and changes. No big changes, no dramatic evolution of how we work with data, though I know all the cloud vendors would point to all the software releases they’ve during the year. I am hoping that 2021 starts to feel more normal, even if the pandemic continues to drag us along in the same manner. At least, I hope I adjust more.

    Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher, Spotify, or iTunes.

  • What Skills Will Help Me?

    Yesterday I wrote a little about skills from the corporate side of your career. What is important, valuable, and helpful to your organization. Today, as we close down 2020, I want to look a little at the skills that will help your career, whether at this organization or another one.

    When I speak with people about their career path, I often hear them speculating on which technologies will be hot, which ones will ensure a long and financially rewarding career. The answer isn’t the same for everyone, and I’m not sure there is any technology that’s can guarantee it will boost your career, but I do have a few thoughts.

    First, you will want to evaluate yourself and understand your skills. How skilled are you at T-SQL or SSIS or security or anything else. Write down skills, evaluate yourself, and also evaluate if you like doing that work. I know when I’ve done this, I sometimes realize I’m doing things I don’t enjoy far too often.

    Next, get some goals about the type of work or employer you are dreaming about. Ask friends about their workplaces, look at job postings, and network with others about the work they do. Be sure to check Glassdoor or other ratings services, as no one wants to go work for an employer everyone dislikes.

    To grow your own skills, I know most people want specifics, so here are some. For development skills, go through the Advent of Code or Exercism and show that you can solve problems. Don’t look at the answers, and don’t look at anyone else’s solution until you have one. Write down how and why you solved something, save it in Github, and blog about it. Whether you share this or not, it’s good practice for you.

    For development or admin skills, learn about DevOps, Continuous Integration, and Continuous Delivery. To do this, you’ll need to learn some scripting and various other organizational skills. Tackle a sample project, and learn to implement it, ensuring you can deploy code to one other machine using these principles. This promotes lots of good, core software development skills that anyone wants. You can use the cloud or not, but many things are not that different in the cloud, conceptually. The syntax varies, but a lot of what you learn can be reused.

    Lastly, work on your soft skills. I recommend blogging, but learn to make a presentation to a friend, at a user group, or even to your dog. Record yourself if you do the latter, and ensure you can concisely and clearly explain concepts. Learn to respect others, listen more than you speak, and critically evaluate ideas, code, and thoughts, without attacking or complaining to others.

    Ask lots of questions of others, in forums or live. Learn to learn, learn to share, and learn to improve your code or admin practices. Refactor things periodically and improve them. These are the ways in which you can grow your talents. You can do this at work, or at home. And if someone doesn’t want to use your refactored code at work, that’s fine. You know when you’ve written something better, and it gives you stories and content for interviews. It isn’t time wasted, as learning to do something better is always good for your growth.

    Steve Jones

    Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher, Spotify, or iTunes.