Voice of the DBA

Category: Editorial

  • 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.

  • Are You Patched?

    It’s been a few weeks since the Spectre/Meltdown bugs were announced for most CPUs. Microsoft has been working hard to build patches, and they’ve provided fixes for Windows and SQL Server. Other manufacturers have released fixes for other platforms, though I wouldn’t be surprised if more patches are coming. We put together a page at SQLServerCentral with information and links, and if you haven’t checked it out, you should.

    If you haven’t patched systems, patch them ASAP.

    This is a bad bug, affecting many CPUs, across multiple architectures, and includes potential issues with virtual machines. The guidance and conversations I’ve heard from various vendors is that many of them aren’t completely sure of all the potential risks or attack vectors, but they are worried that customers will leave this vulnerabilities open in the future. Since this affects hardware, it’s entirely possible that an exploit could read memory from other applications and processes.

    Again, if you haven’t patched systems, patch them.

    There are reports of potential issues, so everyone certainly needs to test systems. Perform a P->V (Physical to virtual conversion) and patch a VM. Make sure the server still runs. If you’re on VMs, snap a copy and patch it as a test. Older processors might see a performance penalty with the patch, but worse performance is better than having a security hole in your CPU available to operating systems.

    This is the type of fundamental architectural bug that’s is very worrisome. The race to be efficient, to copy what works from others, this leads to less innovation not more. I hope that this is a bit of a lesson that we do need separate architectures and approaches to computing problems, both in hardware and software. I love relational databases, but I’m glad that there are other types of systems being used for data storage. I think Windows works really well, but I like competition and think it’s good that we have MacOS, Linux, and more.

    It’s good to have standards and interoperability, but I do think that a heterogeneous environment is good for security, and I hope the world continues to try new architectures as we advance computing ever further.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 3.1MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and Libsyn.

  • Innovation Needs Information

    We are great about sharing knowledge in the technical community. I think the SQL Server community is even better than most technologies as we do a good job of doing so without the rude RTFM that I find in other communities. However, overall we share lots of information with others. I do know that many other communities are catching up and I really appreciate the answers I’ve gotten from others when trying to repair my tractor or auto.

    As the world looks to bring innovative solutions to various problems, it seems that machine learning will play some role. There are some amazing advances taking place in all sorts of areas, and certainly no shortage of organizations that are trying to see if ML enhancements will improve their capabilities. We hear about ML all the time as data professionals, and some of you are starting to try and use these algorithms to build new applications.

    I ran across a great post about innovation that notes that the fuel for ML and related technologies is data. It’s important for training and evaluating systems, and there are companies making a lot of money providing training data. However, there is also lots of data inside companies, especially some of the big social media and communication companies that gives them an advantage. I think that’s OK, after all, these companies have innovated to build large scale enterprises and devoted resources to collecting data.

    However, I do think that more and more data is needed, and companies will work to collect it if they can. That means more and more of us will manage additional data, all of which needs to be cleansed, stored, managed, and protected. More work for us, but also lots of opportunity. Especially if you learn how to process data in new ways.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 2.9MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and Libsyn.

  • How to Grow In Your Career

    This is a great thread on Twitter from Jim Burger, a long time software developer. The thread is a distillation of how he keeps a passion for learning across decades. I think it’s a good list of items, seven of them in total. I’ll give a quick summary, but he has a bit more depth in each tweet. The seven are:

    • Invest in your brain
    • Embrace exploration
    • Find the fun in fundamentals
    • Mentors from from all kinds of places
    • Use the community as an opportunity
    • You don’t have to finish learning
    • Ask people to ask you questions

    This is a great set of rules to help you learn. I certainly believe in the first one and that’s one reason I preach for you to keep learning. You can always get a little better and grow your skills. Apart from the fun, it helps train your brain to keep growing and stay flexible. I also think that finding the fun in fundamentals is great. I appreciate the simple things I accomplish, and I like writing about those. Part of the reason I keep doing #sqlnewblogger posts.

    I also think the community is a huge help. Someone asks a question, and even if it gets answered before you can, use this as an opportunity to solve the problem. Answer a question in our forums. Lots of people learn by helping others solve problems. In fact, plenty of my learning has come from solving problems for others. I get blog fodder, test myself, and solidify my own understanding of how things work.

    If you’ve found a way to continue to have fun learning, let us know today. I know that I tend to do a little but of everything, but certainly I take pride in what works, and even what doesn’t. The latter is always an opportunity for me to learn a bit more.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 2.9MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and Libsyn.