Voice of the DBA

Category: Editorial

  • We Do Need To Upgrade

    I advocate that we should get a long life from our database platforms. In fact, I like to think about a 7-10 year lifetime for many of my database instances. That means I’ll get beyond the 5 year lifetime that Microsoft provides and move into the extended support. Actually, for most of my career, I’ve run instances without support and haven’t had issues. We invest a lot in databases, and I want companies to invest a lot because they are important. That means I need a good payback.

    Microsoft should provide security patches for products throughout the Extended Support period, which means that I should be able to run SQL Server and Windows securely for 10 years. that probably stretches the lifetime, but certainly that gives me time after five years to begin planning and prepping for an upgrade.

    The problems for many customers come when other vendors don’t bother to keep supporting older software and providing patches. Even if Microsoft releases a security fix for your OS, the vendor that makes software you run on top of Windows or SQL Server might not. That’s an issue, and it’s one that will become more of an issue as companies become reluctant to change software that works well.

    This article shows that older ATM machines running XP and Windows 7 are having issues. Some of this is physical access, but some is related to issues in the OS. While Windows 7 should be getting patches, Windows XP is not and needs to be upgraded. In fact, I’d argue that any losses here should be born by ATM owners and not covered by insurance for not having upgraded their systems.

    While I like to get as much time as I can from a system, it’s irresponsible to expect software to run without security patches being actively applied, which includes any upgrades from vendors. In some cases, this might be negligent by the companies doing so, especially for embedded systems. I don’t know that I want governments to force vendors to provide patches, but I’d like companies to write contracts that ensure that patches will exist for come lifetime of the products. In the event the company can’t provide patches (or certification), then they’d need to release their code as open source so that someone can provide a patch.

    The world becomes more intertwined and dependent on computing, from things like convenience services or core systems. We can’t have those systems becoming more vulnerable because companies are unwilling to upgrade and vendors abandon older software. Some sort of compromise is needed to ensure that computer systems are protected from known vulnerabilities.

    Steve Jones

  • Lowering the Noise

    Over my career, I’ve had the chance to work in a variety of environments of all sizes. I’ve managed systems that powered all sorts of applications, with a variety of requirements. In many cases, I’ve had certain databases that needed constant monitoring and care from me to perform as needed. I’ve also had other systems that the business used, but weren’t necessarily critical. Those systems often had a lower priority for my attention if multiple problems occurred at the same time.

    I’ve been meeting regularly with the SQL Monitor team as they try to enhance and tune the next version of their product. As the product has grown and evolved, and SQL Server advances, there are different types of counters and metrics that need to be tracked. One of the major goals is to ensure that they reduce the number of alerts for DBAs and sysadmins that don’t require immediate attention or may be unnecessarily adding to someone’s workload, at least for new installations. You might customize your system to include many alerts. To do this, we have to make decisions for the default alerts and threshholds, which can be a challenge.

    That’s been a goal of mine as an administrator as well. I don’t want to get notifications or alerts of activities that are expected, such as backups. However, if backups fail, I may need to be alerted. Actually, I’m sure I need an alert, but it’s a question of whether I need to know now, at 2am, or get an alert the next morning at 9am. Often I may choose to respond differently to the QA server than I do for the production Sales instance. One might get immediate attention 24×7 while the other is a best available effort, and certainly isn’t likely to get a response on Saturday night.

    While SQL Server becomes better at adapting to changing conditions, there are definitely times when a human must get involved and decide how to solve an issue. That’s the reason that many of us are employed by others. We manage tasks and make decisions that machines can’t do for us. However, our attention and time is limited. Despite what some managers think, there are only so many hours in the day and week, and we need to make decisions about which items to focus on and handle. Perhaps even more important, unnecessary distractions can weaken our focus and cause us to make mistakes that we wouldn’t ordinarily make.

    As we manage more systems, many of which are important to our employers, a good system administrator will tune monitoring systems and ensure that they aren’t receiving or responding to unnecessary alerts. They work to minimize the interruptions and distractions from lower priority items. Maybe most importantly for long term job health, they ensure that systems don’t cause interruptions during their personal time, especially vacations. Good administrators put another human in the loop when they need a break.

    Of course, we also do ensure that low priority systems receive some attention. We can’t ignore that low disk space warning on the development instance forever.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 4.9MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and Libsyn.

  • IoT Increases Efficiency

    There is no shortage of articles about problems with IoT, especially with consumer based IoT products. In fact, many of the ideas and sales are gimmicky with dubious value for me, but I know what some people get excited that they can change their home thermostat from the car or have the fridge send them an inventory, or even have a tracker on their keys.

    There certainly are some great implementation, especially in healthcare, but I think there is a lot of IoT that can really help in business, some of which will create new opportunity for us as data professionals. As the costs for sensors come down and their capabilities rise, I’m sure more people will come up with interesting ways that they can be used.

    I spent quite a few years earlier in life working in the restaurant industry, and I’ve spent my whole life shopping in grocery stores for ingredients to cook with. I know margins are low in these businesses, and there is a lot of waste. When I ran across this article on using IoT in the food industry, I was skeptical that it would become commonplace, but I think I might be wrong. Keeping food fresh has a noticeable impact on profits and sales, and cheap sensors that can help measure data is important in all stages. From the supply chain to your fridge, if data can inform you of those foods that are nearing the end of their lifetime, perhaps you’d make different decisions in shipping, in promotions in restaurants, or even in the recipes you pick for tonight.

    And I’m sure there are some of you that would love to chat about the source and age of the lettuce in your salad at a restaurant. That’s not for me, but IoT is going to change our lives in many ways and give us lots of data with which to work.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 3.0MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and Libsyn.

     

  • Are You Always Up?

    I’ve had the opportunity to work for and with quite a few companies in my career. In some sense working as a database developer or database administratrator is very similar at many places. The “job’s the job,” as I’ve said in more than a few interviews, as I often ask to meet with others and better understand the environment. I’m rarely sold on the technology in use, usually more concerned with management and co-workers, though you might view employment differently.

    At the same time, it can be amazing how different the environment may be and how varied the requirements are for my application and systems. One employer was a small, but busy and growing import/export company. We stretched the limits of technology at the time, and it was a challenge to meet the desires of management. At the same time, we were primarily a weekday, roughly 9-5 shop and I had the opportunity to bring down systems at night or on weekends for maintenance.

    This was in contrast to my prior position at a nuclear power plant. There systems were expected to be up 24×7, with (grudgingly) scheduled maintenance once a quarter. That was the environment with the most stringent requirements, though I also learned over time that I preferred to have a bit more latitude in how I could architect systems or manage databases. Though that was when I had children, and I might be willing to work in a similar environment now.

    Many of you probably have varying requirements by application, but I suspect more of you are expected to keep systems up more often than in the past. It seems the world has moved to a greater dependency on database platforms, with the expectation that the data is always available.

    When you plan upgrades or maintenance, can you work with a flexible schedule? Or are changes always carefully managed? I’m sure some of you prefer one type of environment over the other, so chime in today with your preferences and restrictions. I’m sure some of you work in less busy organizations, and I’m curious if that’s the case.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 3.7MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and Libsyn.