Voice of the DBA

Category: Editorial

  • Getting Close to the 2017 RTM

    I still can’t believe that we’ll have a new version of SQL Server this year. After speaking at so many events last year, talking about the new features of SQL Server 2016, it seems crazy that there’s a new version coming out a year later. Welcome to the new world of DevOps, fast engineering processes, and the increasing pace of software releases from vendors. We can debate the wisdom or value of this, and you might not like it, but it’s certainly the reality of today.

    The first Release Candidate (RC) for SQL Server 2017 is available this week. The big change for RC1 is that we can now use Active Directory authentication on Linux, and we get SSIS on Linux. There are a few other items, but these are the big ones. I guess SSIS scale out is a big deal for some people as their data load times increase, but I’d think that is a relatively small number of people. I’d also be wary of having clustering support for my ETL workloads, all of which haven’t been designed for that environment. I would see this feature as being more important and valuable over time. For now, let the SSIS gurus develop some patterns and practices that make sense for us to follow.

    There are other new features in SQL Server 2017, and I’d urge you to play with them a bit. Upgrades are always tricky to justify for me, as I’m sure they are for you. If you don’t know how the new features work, or how they might apply to your systems, how can you decide what to do?

    I tend to favor sticking with what works for older systems and moving to new versions for newer systems. Your view might vary, and certainly unless you want to setup SQL Server instances on Linux, I’m not sure 2017 offers a lot over 2016. In fact, I’d accelerate any SQL 2016 instance installations I could to avoid being trapped with SQL 2017 licenses and the chance that price or licensing terms will change. If there were features that made significant advances for my current system, I’d certainly look at SQL Server 2017.

    Since I tend to only move to newer versions when there is a good reason or a new install is being performed, I like the rapid release cadence. With the deployment and testing in Azure, it seems to me the quality of SQL Server keeps increasing, and the rapid releases allow new changes to come out sooner rather than later. With a version every 18 months (my guess at the new pace), I can adopt new features relatively quickly if I think they are beneficial.

    That being said, SQLServerCentral still runs on SQL Server 2008. It works, and we really just would like a core database engine. I do find it strange to work on the 2008 version of T-SQL as some of the data analysis I try to do is harder to write. I’d really like to upgrade and hopefully we’ll make a good enough case to try and move to SQL 2017 late this year or next. Maybe then we can get the chance to play with some graph capabilities and add them to SQLServerCentral, comparing them to good old relational queries in real time.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 4.8MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and Libsyn.

  • Short Names

    I started using computers a long time ago, and in the PC world, we were often limited to an 8 character name and a 3 character extension. Unix and MacOS allowed longer names, and many of us in DOS and Windows were jealous. Eventually Windows evolved, allowing long names, spaces, and really quite a bit of latitude in what you want to name a file. For example, try this and see what happens on your SQL Server:

    BACKUP DATABASE Sandbox TO DISK = 'Sandbox.thisisafullbackupthatIusetostartarestore'

    However, the three character extension still dominates, and many applications still use this. Microsoft has started to get away from this, as we have .docx, .xlsx, etc. Other vendors and software systems have started to expand names slightly. I was reading about the SQL Server Diagnostics Preview and noticed that the engineers will take a dump file (.dmp) as well as a mini dump (.mdmp) and a filtered dump (.hdmp).

    Now I know developers are lazy, and they don’t like to type, but in these days of auto-completion and other tools, why are we limiting ourselves. Why wouldn’t we use .minidump or .filtereddump as descriptive way of identifying the file? If we are no longer bound, why not include a better extension? I can’t imagine that the filesystem for many tools would be stressed by longer names.

    I’m assuming that people still feel bound to using the shortest set of letters that they think are unique, but with the growth of software applications from many, many sources, why not just be more descriptive? Would you want to see better filenames? I know I would.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 2.7MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and Libsyn.

  • Cool Projects

    This editorial was originally published on Aug 23, 2013. It is being re-published as Steve is on vacation.

    I had a conversation recently with a developer that was working on a rather neat problem. This had to do with a financial system and it involved some complex calculations and real time interactions with a variety of systems. It was important for their company, and a lot of pressure was on this developer to not only deliver this software quickly, but also to have it perform at a very high level. This particular person was using Red Gate’s ANTS Performance Profiler to dig into their code, feeling pressure to make it as efficient as possible.

    However this developer was also enjoying the work. It was a challenge, and it was a cool project.

    I know this community is made up of people working in all sorts of industries, in a variety of roles. We develop many different kinds of software. Some may be for employers, some may be for ourselves, some may be for a side business, but  across that spectrum of work, there are some interesting applications.

    What cool things are you working on?

    It might not be software. Perhaps you’re working on an interesting data application, like a super collider. Maybe you work on some gaming software or a large hardware system. Perhaps you deal with a system that makes people’s lives better, easier, or even possible. I’m sure more than a few of you work on some real time systems, which have all kinds of data challenges.

    Let us know this week what type of interesting work you’re doing.

    Steve Jones

     

  • Learning Data Modeling

    Last week I wrote about database design tests in interviews. Many of you noted that you hadn’t been asked to perform any design in tests, and plenty of you noticed that ER diagrams are a rarity. Those experiences match mine and are a little disappointing for our industry. Even for software developers, many of whom don’t build databases, I’d expect that ER diagrams to be helpful and plentiful. Our clients are often developers and report writing businesspeople. Why don’t they demand better documentation?
    If they were to ask for us to produce ER diagrams and documentation, I’d hope most of you could produce one, even using SSMS or some other tool. However, can you design the storage for your business requirements in a way that you would feel comfortable presenting to your peers? Do you think you can build a database that efficiently stores data, performs well, and is easy for application developers to work with? If so, I have a question.
    What resources would you recommend for others to learn about data modeling?
    We have a dearth of database design articles on SQLServerCentral, though we do have a Stairway Series on Database Design. I don’t know how easy it is for most developers, or even database architects, to read and understand. I realize that modeling and designing databases can be complex topics, and it does take some effort to learn to do it well, but I also believe that we need practical, easy to approach articles that lead people through the concepts.
    I’d love to see more articles from real world people that discuss designing sections of databases. How do you handle scheduling systems? Inventory tracking? Customer details? If anyone wants to write articles that might lead a reader along (such as Paul White or Brandie Tarvin did), we’d love to have them submitted at SQLServerCentral.
    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 3.2MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and Libsyn.