Voice of the DBA

Category: Editorial

  • Another Model, More Data Loss

    This past week I saw an article on eWeek that the newest OpenAI GPT-5.6 (Sol) model has deleted local files and live data. Files I’m less worried about, but data concerns me. There are lots of file backups, and certainly version control should be enabled for any developer tasks on which an AI works. However, data is harder, since it can change quickly, especially in live environments.

    There are different reports, some of which seem like more human error issues than the model’s, but we should account for human error when we use models. In one report, a model had access to a live production database and cleared tables for integration tests. Database testing is hard, as I’ve learned over the years. Many developers don’t think about how testing works with live data and how it is different from mocks and stubs. It is different, and if you use a lot of testing frameworks on live databases, you run the risk of there being issues. You could have data loss, and almost certainly will have some level of downtime disruption.

    This is a great reason why adding AI coding to database tasks needs governance around what is allowed. It is easy to have success with AI-assisted work and forget that these models can make mistakes. And if you trust them with too much, like you might be tempted with an impressive but junior DBA, you might get burned. These automated tools can get hyper-focused on a certain task, and not consider the ramifications of their actions. The article notes an agent ran “rm -rf” on a dev machine. That’s similar to what happened with Toy Story 2, where a human made the mistake. Both that person and this GPT-5.6 model weren’t thinking widely enough about what tasks they were managing.

    The article notes that this model can be overly persistent and assume actions are permitted unless explicitly prohibited. Not unlike a lot of humans who assume if someone has given them rights, they can do the task. OpenAI noted in an internal case that a user approved the removal of three VMs. When the coding agent didn’t find these, it looked for other machines and chose three other VMs. Crazy, but I’ve seen humans do this in the past.

    I don’t think these models are getting closer to Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) or that they are anywhere close to sentience. However, as they become more capable and handle more complex predictive actions, they are also likely to do the same stupid things humans do by not considering all the possible consequences of their actions. After all, we have plenty of data where humans haven’t considered the effects of their actions, and that data is in the AI model training set.

    Steve Jones

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  • What is CPU Usage?

    I had a request from a customer recently who asked if we could give them a report of their database server instances and include CPU usage. This request was filtered through an account executive, so something was lost in translation, but I was confused and asked for clarification, as asking for CPU usage is kind of like asking how fast you were traveling in your car. There needs to be more context.

    If someone asked you for a report of CPU usage for a database, what would you expect? How would you report this? I’m sure the person asking might make a difference. A fellow DBA, your DBA manager, or maybe an executive could all view this differently. I want to know how things are performing, if there is a trend, or maybe if we are getting value for the hardware we’ve provisioned, depending on my role.

    If you were looking at your monitoring system, what would you look for? Redgate Monitor shows the last 24 hours of CPU with the last two hours in a focus window as the default, though you can easily change this. Perhaps you’d prefer this boiled down to min/max/average values over a time period? If there’s something else you’d consider, let me know. Maybe I can get it added.

    Certainly, the values you expect might depend on what you are trying to measure. Is there an acute performance issue? Then you might worry about the spot values or perhaps the last xx minutes of trending CPU values. If this is capacity planning, then peaks and average values can matter. If you are looking forward, you might even want longer trend lines and future extrapolation.

    Of course, the experienced DBA knows that other metrics need to be taken into account when looking at the CPU. 100% usage isn’t necessarily an issue if the workload isn’t creating unnecessary processes stacking up or too much latency in returning results. Perhaps the amount of memory used should be included to determine if there are CPU or RAM (or other) bottlenecks.

    There are a lot of factors that might go into how you examine the performance or efficiency of a database server, whether SQL Server or any other platform. A well-performing system has to balance lots of factors to meet the demands of a workload. A poor-performing system doesn’t do this well and often there are many more factors than how much of your CPU capacity is being used.

    The other thing this request showed me is how poorly many people communicate, and especially how much can be lost as a message moves from one person to another. This is an area where AI can succeed or fail as well. IF we communicate poorly with AI, we may waste time and money while receiving useless results. If we let AIs provide summaries to us, or from us, the model may choose to emphasize, highlight, reword, or hide things we think are important. After all, the model is predicting what should come next, not understanding the information.

    Communication is crucial and is becoming more important as we become more distributed and allow technology to sit between us.

    Steve Jones

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

    Note, podcasts are only available for a limited time online.

  • Republish: IT Staffer Fired

    It’s a great title, and it’s one many people have worried about in their careers. I know I have, and I decided to re-run IT Staffer Fired today. Leave me your thoughts as you re-read this in today’s world.

    It’s a vacation day for me. It’s actually my June-teenth holiday day. I had to work that day and do some recordings, so I flexed it to Jul 20. I was at Day of Data Baton Rouge over the weekend, and my wife came with me. We decided to take a few days in New Orleans and get away from the Colorado heat. It’s still hot in NO, but we can relax, hang out by a pool or in the AC.

    Enjoy Monday and see you tomorrow.

  • The SQL Server 2016 Plan

    SQL Server 2016 went out of support this week, on Jul 14, 2026. This is the end of the Extended support, according to the Support Lifecycle page. Microsoft posted an article on next steps for SQL Server 2016, which looks like the AI read of an article at the top. There’s a lot of header info, so scroll down. I’m sure none of you want to listen to 10 minutes of an AI voice reading an article.

    I know some of you still run SQL Server 2016. In fact, I still run into some companies on older versions, and the last (ever) update from Brent also showed 6% on 2014 and older. There are probably still plenty, albeit a minority, of systems on older versions. I know when I worked in a non-regulated industry, we weren’t in a hurry to upgrade as many of our applications ran fine on older versions. Especially with VMs these days, I could see people sticking with 2016 for a while if it’s running well. Just be sure your server is well protected by firewalls.

    The blog gives 3 upgrade paths: Azure (IaaS or PaaS), SQL Server 2025, or Extended Security Updates. That latter one goes until 2029 if you want to pay for it. This is certainly a marketing post more than a technical one. Moving to Azure PaaS isn’t necessarily easy or quick. IaaS doesn’t help you here, so I’m sure whoever wrote this post (or whatever AI) isn’t thinking this through. An Azure VM isn’t going to get me any support.

    SQL Server 2025 is likely the easiest if you want to upgrade, as you could continue to use an older compatibility level in your database on SQL Server 2025. It will cost something, but it does give you 9-ish years of support and updates. I’d certainly prefer this over paying for ESU. It might not be a seamless upgrade, but I’d give it a quick go and see if my application worked on a restored 2016-on-2025 database. That’s an easy test and helps me make a decision.

    I suspect some in regulated industries need support for their compliance goals, and they might pay for ESU if their staff is busy and they need to mitigate an audit finding. I think this option is there, and it’s expensive, as a carrot/stick combo for organizations to upgrade. I can’t be upset about this, as I think there should be a plan in organizations to keep their software up to date. Either deliberately plan to remain on an older version and accept the risk, or ensure you have plans (and time) in place to regularly upgrade systems.

    If you’re on SQL Server 2016, what are your plans? Upgrading soon? Sticking with the platform? And if you’re on 2017 or 2019, you ought to be thinking forward and be ready to handle the end of support for those versions.

    Steve Jones