Voice of the DBA

Category: Editorial

  • A Bit of History

    This is a bit off topic, away from the world of databases, but it certainly does touch on the power of computers.

    I had a great 2015 holiday season, taking not one, but two vacations. Our family had their annual ski trip to Steamboat Springs, which is always enjoyable. However before Christmas, I took my 17 year old on a birthday trip to Florida. We’ve gotten away from parties and gifts, instead trying to give kids memories.

    In this case, we journeyed to Cape Canaveral, spending a few days at the Kennedy Space Center viewing exhibits and going on tours. My son was thrilled to see real rockets, especially the Saturn 5, and also tour one of the launch control rooms. In fact, we could see the countdown clock active for the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on our tour of the Launch Control Center.

    That was exciting to see. I’d tried to schedule the trip near a launch but couldn’t get away during the launch dates with school and work commitments. However the day we left, I saw the announcement that the previously TBD SpaceX launch had been scheduled during our trip. After a scrub one night with wind and rain, the launch took place our last night in town.

    The official video is better than mine, which I recorded from the Cape Canaveral causeway, about 5-6 miles away. It’s an amazing piece of history. Other than my wedding day and the births of my children, this was the most amazing thing I’d seen, even from a distance. I’m interested in space and technology, but not a big space geek. However I was definitely giddy at seeing this bit of history.

    Computing technology has helped us achieve some amazing things, and in conjunction with incredible engineering, as humans, we’ve managed to accomplish some amazing feats with rockets and space travel. I look forward to seeing what will happen across the next few decades as more companies and countries tackle new challenges in space.

    And if you ever have any doubt about the power of the computers we use, it appears the Falcon rocket uses x86 processors, like so many of us.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 2.8MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and LibSyn.

  • Rulebreaking Developers

    The VW emissions scandal fascinates me. Maybe because it’s a case of software being used to fundamentally alter a product to deceive us. Maybe because I’m a car guy and have a soft spot for VW and the old Scirocco I used to drive in college. Maybe because we have blame being passed between management and software developers that could potentially affect our industry.

    In any case, the latest news I saw was of a press conference where the upper management of VW seems to indicate that the software developers on the project decided to alter the software. Certainly I’m sure some managers were involved, but I still fundamentally find it hard to believe that a small team engineered these changes independently. Even if they did, I think that ultimately upper management throughout the company has to take responsibility. After all, they took credit for the sales.

    There are a couple interesting points made by the company. First, they are upgrading IT systems to track work better. I’m hoping they’re moving to more of a DevOps practice, with transparency and openness, as well as lean processes that can be changed quickly. I suspect they might be moving to more overhead and auditing, but time will tell.

    The other interesting thing is that the company noted that even when technical solutions were available, they weren’t used. To me, this directly points to the problems so many of us face as technologists. When we have better solutions, or we can correct deficiencies, management doesn’t want to spend the time or effort to do so.

    That is one of the fundamental things that makes software so powerful. We can make changes, we can improve things, we can implement better security in a way that’s a fraction of the cost of making similar changes in the analog world. However it seems that even smaller efforts aren’t worth making if there is a little more profit to be squeezed out. At least, that’s what managers seem to think.

    That’s a part of business culture that I’d like to see evolve. Let’s look to continually improve things, making them better, more secure, and less bug ridden, even if it slightly slows down new enhancements or costs a little money.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 2.5MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and LibSyn.

  • Hacking to Hide

    It’s probably no surprise to you that the black boxes for ships are vulnerable to hacking. These are the Voyage Data Recorders (VDR) that should capture telemetry, audio recordings, and more. These devices are really computers now, connected to the onboard networks used for satellite communications and physically accessible in many vessels.

    It was surprising to hear that some of these VDRs are running Windows XP. While I get that there is some ease of development in using Window systems, that OS wasn’t what I’d call robust and stable for stressful and rugged environments. Some systems use real time OSes, which seems like a better compromise, but Linux might be the best choice for a system both tolerant to a variety of conditions as well as one that might be easy to build applications for.

    However no matter what the choice, I’d hope that the developers building software for these systems would treat them with the importance they deserve. While lives aren’t at stake from these applications, liability is. These systems are used in legal proceedings, so the data they collect, in an autonomous fashion, should be protected to ensure its integrity.

    Apparently that doesn’t happen, as there are incidents of these devices being hacked an data erased, corrupted, interrupted, or even accessed by those on the ships. That’s not surprising as it seems people always find ways to take advantage of the computer systems they physically control. Ultimately I’d hope that we might constantly transmit some of this data off the ship to ensure there are backup copies, but that brings to mind the problems of securing data in transit, preventing access or disclosure and more.

    However these systems might provide a good testbed for researchers looking to better build and architect auditing systems. This is a challenging environment, with high stakes, and if we can develop ways to ensure auditing data is intact when we have lost physical control of the device for long periods of time, perhaps we can find ways to build this same auditing into other platforms.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 2.4MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and LibSyn. feed

  • Surface Book

    It’s almost time for me to get a new laptop. I’ve had a Toshiba for about a year, but it’s not held up well. The screen has gotten loose, the trackpad and clickers are not consistenly responsive, the pointer device sometimes drifts on its own, and I have had a couple memory related crashes. All in all, despite a similar travel schedule to what I’ve had the last couple years, this laptop is showing its age quicker than others. These are flaky issues, not easily reproducible, and something that the warranty doesn’t seem to cover.

    As I look to future travel and talks, I realize that I need to find something that might be more reliable. That’s always tricky as it seems people have a variety of different experiences with the same model machine. This last year has made me hesitant to think about chancing a new, or unpopular brand, something I did last year in trying to find a small, lightweight machine that can handle 16GB of RAM.

    I read a review of the Surface Book after two months, which is one I’d like to consider. I’ve been impressed with the Surface Pros, but prevented from using them as I need 16GB on the machine. The Surface 4, on which the Surface Book is based, has that capacity, so I am intrigued. I worried about the new hardware, but it seems that the Surface 4s have been fairly solid. A couple of firmware glitches relating to sleep mode, but I’m hoping those get ironed out in the next couple months. At least I hope they do because I really like the idea of a Surface machine.

    I do suspect that like the reviewer, I’d mainly use the machine as a laptop. That’s what I need, and I’m not a big consumer of media. However the option to use the machine as a tablet is interesting. I had the chance to use Rob Sewell‘s Surface 3 as a notebook with a stylus during a presentation at SQL Relay and enjoyed the experience. There are some nice OneNote integrations, though I’m not sure how often I’d want to take notes on a computer rather than paper.

    However the main contender for me is probably a MacBook Pro. I loved the MacBook Air I had, and was disappointed to move away from it. I also want to do some iOS and cross platform development, which a MacBook would allow. The hardware is solid and proven, and it’s a similar cost to the Surface. I have a few months to decide. If I go MacBook, I’ll wait for the March (rumored) refresh. If I’m unsure that that time, I’ll probably think about the Surface as a backup. Either way, I’ll be in hardware search mode across the next few months, with fingers crossed that my current machine survives.

    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.