Voice of the DBA

Category: Editorial

  • A Fun Distraction

    As we approach the Christmas holiday, this is a time when work usually slows down and many of us spend some time trying to relax and recharge away from the challenges and responsibilities we face in technology. Unless you work in an organization that looks to profit from the holiday, I suspect this is the slowest time of the year for you. Budgets haven’t been decided for the new year and many of us aren’t pressured with deadlines between Christmas and New Years.

    Since lots of us might have some extra time, I thought I’d ask the question about what might entertain you across the next few weeks. I’m sure a few of you have some ideas, perhaps something to catch up on that might be geek related. I’m also guessing that some of you don’t have any plans, and might be looking for something to entertain and distract you.

    Today I’m asking you to share with everyone a way that you might spend some of your time away from work the next two weeks. Perhaps there’s a science fiction book you’ve been wanting to read. Maybe there’s a geeky movie or TV show that you’d like to see. Perhaps you’re working on maker project that’s fun, like building a drone, a clock, or some other technological gadget. Or maybe you’re doing something non technical. Perhaps you’ve got a cooking project or a car improvement, or just want to learn how to open a lock.

    I’ll be traveling in Ireland for the next week with my family, so we likely won’t be tackling any projects, but I am going to try and read The Three Body Problem, on a recommendation from my oldest. Other than that, if I find time, I might see if I can convince my family to watch some of the classic sci fi I haven’t seen yet.

    Have a great holiday, and share some of your ideas for leisure activities this week and I’ll be back after Christmas.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 2.6MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and Libsyn.

  • SQL in the City 2016

    It’s time for SQL in the City 2016 to start today. Actually, by the time some of you read this, we may already be underway. This year the event is being broadcast from the Redgate Software offices in Cambridge, UK. Along with Grant Fritchey and a number of other Redgaters, we’re holding our annual conference live for the world to watch. In fact, to ensure everyone can watch, we’re going to broadcast both today and tomorrow (Dec 15) at different times to reach the entire world. If you can’t tune in today, come back tomorrow as the content is the same, just about 4 hours later. That means an early day in the office for me today, and then a late one tomorrow, but it’s worth it to give you a fun show.

    I’ve enjoyed being a part of SQL in the City for many years, in quite a few cities around the US as well as London. Each year we spend time trying to showcase new products and features from Redgate that can better help you develop software. That’s the mission at Redgate. We want to make you more productive as you build applications on top of SQL Server. Part of doing that is showing you examples and providing education in addition to selling software.

    As an evangelist, I’ve been proud that Redgate continues to give back to the community and invests heavily in SQLServerCentral, Simple Talk, and many other conferences and events around the world. We truly do want to be a part of the #sqlfamily and try to ensure that every one of us gets better at our job over time. To me this is one of the great things about the SQL Server community in that we all support, inspire, assist, and share with each other. I’m happy to help contribute what I can to educate SQL Server professionals every day.

    This should be a fun couple of days, and I hope you enjoy the sessions we’ve been developing this fall. We’ve got some great new products that have been under development in 2016 and should be releasing soon. I think you’ll like what we’ve been working on.

    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.

  • DBAs Need to Learn to Develop

    This editorial was originally published on Jan 7, 2014. It is being re-run as Steve is at SQL in the City today.

    My first exposure to computers was as a child, learning to program in BASIC, Assembler, and Pascal. From there I moved into other areas, such as networking and system administration. I learned about a variety of technologies before focusing on databases, but I found that my knowledge from other areas of computing helped me be a more successful DBA at quite a few jobs.

    Last year we put on a number of SQL in the City Seminars where Grant Fritchey and I talked about development practices. We give a variety of advice and practices that you can use, but one of the best things that we say in our half day event comes from Grant. He says that DBAs need to “Follow the local development paradigm as much as possible.”

    I completely agree with this. I think that many of the practices of building software, as flawed as they might be, are good ideas that many developers use on a regular basis. They know how to work in a flexible manner, tracking their code and keeping it under control, and fixing problems in a rapid manner. As immature as the software development process can be, there are things that we, as DBAs, can learn.

    As SQL Server continues to grow as a platform, there are more and more enhancements, many of which involve programmatic capabilities expanding. I highly recommend that DBAs think about learning more about programming, and specifically a .NET language, if you’ve never used one. If you have, consider brushing up those skills.

    Steve Jones

     

  • The Five Year Plan

    This editorial was originally published on June 13, 2013. It is being re-run today as Steve is traveling.

    IT departments won’t exist in five years. A bold prediction from the CITE conference last week. It’s not so much a prediction of an increase in cloud services, but more the idea that the centralized IT department is struggling with the consumerization of technology, the increasing demands of the business for faster turnaround on projects and prototypes, and the flexibility being demanded by an increasingly technology savvy workforce.

    Like most predictions, I take this one with a grain of salt. I don’t think five years is enough time to change the face of the enterprise IT groups. Five years ago the first iPhone had been out for a year and was being demanded by users to replace their Blackberries. These days many corporations support iPhones, along with other smartphones, and Blackberries have disappeared from many organizations. However IT has adapted, released some of their control, and even integrated some of their policies into new technologies. When I enabled corporate mail on my smartphone recently, I had to allow some remote management features to get mail, which was fine with me.

    I do agree that we will start to see some of our IT functions, especially small projects and POC (proof of concepts) increasingly being driven in departments. There are too many projects, too many different technologies, and too little time to work on them for central IT departments to tackle all these projects. Departmental management won’t wait for IT that is stretched too thin, especially if they have existing staff that have some technology skills. That latter factor is something becoming more and more common all the time.

    However I can’t see central IT disappearing. There are often quite a few systems that are complex, that are too large, too important to let someone manage part time. There are projects that cross departments, or even the entire company, and coordinating tasks and resources between departments is complex. Add to all of this the problems and hassles of hiring good technology people, and I can see projects rising in departments, but being turned over at times to IT to manage.

    I do think that central IT groups need to be more flexible, and reduce some of their rules, or adapt them to new technologies and platforms. I expect people working in central staff to be “lent” to departments for projects, perhaps even multiple departments at the same time to help get projects completed, while also gaining some training on the various systems in order to provide support when other staff isn’t available. Such as weekends.

    Steve Jones