Voice of the DBA

Category: Editorial

  • May the Force Be With You

    I’ve never done much more than give a passing smile when I see all the posts and notes about May 4th from geeks around the world. I was a huge Star Wars fan as a child, and the original is still probably the movie I’ve seen more times than any other. Life has moved on, and while I haven’t been a s big a fan as an adult, being shut in at home has me thinking about Star Wars today, and the good luck saying, “May the force be with you. Always.”

    I loved the original trilogy growing up, was disappointed, but slogged through the prequels with my oldest. I watched the Force Awakens in Cape Canaveral with my middle son in the theater after seeing SpaceX launch and successfully recover their first reusable rocket. We were both a little disappointed in that one, not from the effects and action, but more from the writing, which seemed to drag on.

    Since that time, I haven’t seen any of the other films in the theater. In fact, I’ve watched most of them on an airplane, traveling from one place to another. Since I’m not traveling now, I’m thinking to actually go re-watch some of these films on a larger screen, with better lighting. I’m hoping some immersion in a series of films will take my mind away from some of the stress and strangeness of the real world.

    I’m sure some of you are big fans to this day, some may not have seen all (or any) of the films. Today, as we start another work week, I’m taking a little break from the technical world I’ll spend most of the day in and looking at a fantastic, highly technologically advanced, geeky Star Wars universe. Do you have favorite films or technology? Any films or characters that stand out to you? I have to admit I was always a big fan of the land speeder, though the pod racing in The Phantom Menace was exiting to me.

    On this Star Wars day, with a world we might want to forget, share some Star Wars memories today.

    Steve Jones

     

  • Are You Ready To Change Your Work Environment?

    It’s Friday, it’s been a long few months, and I’m wondering what you think of work now that many of us are telecommuting. This week, I’m wondering if you want to answer one of these questions?

    • If you are telecommuting full time for the first time, do you want to continue doing so?
    • If you are telecommuting full time for the first time, are you ready to go back to an office?
    • If you’ve been working from home for some time, are you ready to go back to an office with people around?
    • Do you just need a variety in your working environment?

    These are questions I’ve asked myself many times across the last few decades. My thoughts and answers have changed a bit over the years, and even now they’re different than they used to be a few months ago. Right now, I want to go back to an office more often than I used to go. I usually go to the Redgate Cambridge office four times a year, and the US offices rarely. I think after this, I’d like to get to each office in the US a couple times a year and four times in Cambridge. I miss talking to live co-workers. I might feel differently when this shut in ends, but I miss having some people around.

    For almost ten years, I drove to an office every day while my wife worked at home. I was jealous, and wanted to telecommute full time, but none of my management would allow it. Then for almost another ten years I worked at home with my wife. She traveled quite often, and I struggled with the loneliness of being by myself. I often went to lunches with friends or sat in a Starbucks and worked, just to have some other people around. The third phase of my work environment has me at home alone often, but also on the road regularly, so I haven’t struggled with the times I’ve been alone in my office for weeks.

    I don’t know how things will move forward from here. I’m sure something will change, and I look forward to societies finding ways to open things up over time. I know we’ll adapt and cope, but I also know that even the most introverted of us is a social creature and we do need some contact with others. Today, I wonder if your views of how we want to work have changed.

    Steve Jones

    Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher or iTunes.

  • Keeping Unique Aliases

    I am a big standards guy. Not any particular standards, but ensuring you have some in your organization and that people stick to them. Pascal case, Camel case, it doesn’t matter to me. I’ll build a habit with any of them; I just want some consistency from others working in a team. Or even across teams since people move to different projects over time.

    I ran across another post on naming conventions, this one looking at SQL standards, and it’s a practical look at a few things. I like some of the ideas, like the singular or plural choice (” Who cares. Just pick one and use it consistently. “), but I especially like the idea of the third item: standard aliasing.

    In the past, I’ve often found that I used the same aliases over and over. When I was the only DBA, this ensured consistency. “P” was always for dbo.Product, and pc was always used for ProductCategory. However, when we added other team members, I quickly realized we didn’t use the same conventions. I’d check out code and see prod.productid instead of p.productid. The new people didn’t like my single character aliases and I didn’t like typing most of the word for theirs.

    Ultimately we had to decide what made sense for both of us and compromise. We choose specific items, not all at once, but as needed. We’d have a 30s meeting or exchange a quick chat message and then update a document with the standards. When other new developers were hired, they already had a reference list that they quickly learned.

    I think the idea of standard aliases makes sense. It’s built into SQL Prompt and some other tools, precisely because many teams want to ensure their developers adhere to a standard, and more importantly, can quickly understand any code they pick up. That’s the real reason for standards: they convey information, silently and quickly.

    Steve Jones

    Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher or iTunes.

  • Encryption Gets Broken All the Time

    There are always researchers and hackers looking to break encryption algorithms. In fact, there are regularly a series of challenges against the very commonly used RSA algorithm. Recently, the RSA-250 challenge was completed with the algorithm being factored, albeit with a key length of only 829 bits. Most of us would use a 2048 or 4096 key length, so this isn’t that disconcerting. Especially given the amount of time this took.

    The effort took 2700 core-years, and in real time, thousands of cores used for a few months. This was a new record, and one that scientists regularly compete for. There are challenges that are being run to try and help determine just how strong our encryption algorithm are in today’s world. I don’t think many of us have anything to worry about, but if you are still using any lower length RSA key lengths (512 or 1024), you might think about replacing these keys with longer ones.

    In fact, all sorts of algorithms and key lengths have been shown to be insecure, meaning they can be cracked relatively easily. In SQL Server, there are a number of algorithms that have been deprecated for this reason. While most people don’t use the encryption features of SQL Server, some do, and some of you might not realize they are in use in your system. If older algorithms are being used, you should change them as soon as you can. Right now, only the AES algorithms are active, and using any older ones requires a compatibility level of 120 or lower.

    This isn’t to imply that encryption isn’t strong or useful or necessary. It does provide protection, but it isn’t perfect. In fact, just like many organizations don’t rely on just locks; they also use live human patrols to secure their assets. You shouldn’t rely only on encryption along. Audit and monitor your systems for unusual and unauthorized activity, and then take the appropriate action, including revoking access for compromised encryption keys.

    Steve Jones

    Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher or iTunes.