Voice of the DBA

Category: Editorial

  • The Importance of Our Work

    My wife has often uttered a particular saying during stressful times in her career. She spent 20 years working in computer telephony and speech, often in sales, and would remind her colleagues that they “weren’t saving babies” as they worked with customers.

    It was a reminder that most of our work isn’t, ultimately, that critical to the world. It matters for our businesses to success, for our careers to move forward, but most of the time we should keep some perspective on the value of the time we spend at work versus the rest of our lives.

    I ran across that saying recently in a post from Scott Hanselman, and like him, I’ll apologize if your work is actually affecting life. If so, I agree with Mr. Hanselman, make sure you have unit tests. Lots of them.

    However for most of us, we’re trying to improve commerce in some way. A few of us work for non-profits or the government and hopefully are trying to make the workings of that organization more efficient.  Some of us might be building systems using open data to improve society in some way. No matter what you do, remember that there is some life outside of technology.

    Remember to spend time with your family, with friends, even taking care of yourself. Not only is it healthy to get away from work, it can help refresh you and give you a new perspective on the work you do. Work is important, but keep your efforts in perspective.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 2.0MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and LibSyn. feed

  • The New DBA

    What does DBA mean? It’s traditionally meant Database Administrator for technologists. However it’s also been a synonym for a database developer, or even anyone that has raised privileges on a database system. The term has been expanded to people designing databases, and usually includes the BI developers or analysts that work with database related technologies.

    In short, it’s been a vague term that means different things to different people. However as I look forward, I think there’s another interpretation I have. The people functioning as DBAs, are the Data Bridges to Applications. We take the data and find ways to ensure it’s useful to applications. We make sure it’s available. We connect systems together. We do the dirty work of cleaning data. We secure the bridge.

    We really are the person that needs to answer any question about the database. Throughout my career, when a company has decided to use DBAs, I have found the DBA is usually the catch-all person that really needs to be able to do whatever is asked of them that might tangentially relate to a database.

    While there have always been DBAs that tightly controlled their systems and acted as impediments to change, I think those positions are disappearing fast. More and more companies, if they even bother to hire DBAs, want those individuals to ensure data is useful. Whether that’s administering, developing, configuring, or anything else related to data, whether the data is in an RDBMS, Access, Excel, the cloud, NoSQL, any anywhere else, we need to be able to provide some solution to gets data to an application.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 2.1MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and LibSyn.

  • #SQLNewBlogger

    In April, Ed Leighton-Dick set up a challenge to motivate new bloggers to begin writing about their knowledge of SQL Server. This is a passion of mine, and I believe this is one of the ways you can truly help interest potential employers in your work. It’s allows them to perform some due diligence, and I’ve had success in my career with employers being impressed with the knowledge I’ve shared through blogging.

    Ed made note of a new Twitter hashtag, #SQLNewBlogger, and there were a few people that participated in the challenge. However, there weren’t enough. I was really hoping to see more people join in, start blogging, and showcasing their knowledge. Therefore, I’m making an appeal here.

    Let’s extend the SQLNewBlogger. I’d like to change the rules a bit and see if I can motivate a few of you to start building your communication skills and showcasing your knowledge across the next year. Just like a class at a gym can motivate you to try harder and longer than you might otherwise, I’m hoping the #SQLNewBlogger tag can do that.

    If you’re thinking of asking for a raise, or looking for a new job next year, in 2016, do these things now:

    1. Set yourself a weekly reminder, and appointment, at a time when you can spare 15-30 minutes. Use this time to work on communicating, through writing.
    2. Get yourself a note taking system. You can use OneNote, Evernote, Remember the Milk, or Notepad. As you write queries, set up a system, or solve a problem, make a note of what you did. Pull out that list each week when the reminder you set in #1. Completely ignore anything anyone else has written on your subject and write your own thoughts.
    3. Make it a goal to get a 1-2 page post done each month. I’d like to think that in 1-2 weeks you can get one done, but find your pace.
    4. Use the #SQLNewBlogger tag to ask for help reviewing your post (you want good quality) and then finish one post a month. If you’d rather do this privately, have a friend review your work.
    5. You can get a free blog at WordPress, TypePad, Blogger, etc. You can choose to write and safe drafts forever, or publish posts for potential recruiters and employers to learn about your skills.
    6. Let us know what you wrote about. Either a link if you’ve published it for us to see, or a title if you keep the content private.

    That’s it. If it sounds like a lot, I’d remind you this is asking for 1-2 hours a month. 12-24 a week, to showcase your knowledge, grow your career, and maybe most importantly, improve your ability to write a sentence. We communicate constantly in this business, despite all the code we write, so learn to do it better.

    Next year, whether you publish publicly or not, you’ll have 12 things that show you have some knowledge about SQL Server. I’ve got a few references on setting up a blog, choosing topics, and writing better.

    I’d also like my fellow bloggers to encourage and cheer on the people making an effort to share some knowledge and grow their careers.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 4.6MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and LibSyn.

  • Skill Supply and Demand

    Across my career, I’ve seen many managers and executives promote and press for IT groups to consider alternative technologies. The mass media has often promoted new platforms and languages as a more efficient way to build software. Some of their claims might be true, but I think there’s a much bigger factor than technology in how well your software is written.

    Your employees’ skills are probably the most important influence on the quality of your systems. The technology doesn’t matter if the staff doesn’t understand it. I think it’s even more important to be sure that you can replace your staff. People will come and go in your organization.

    I was reading about the development of RavenDB, which is a another platform. It’s written in C#, and the maintainer of the project was asked about moving to F#. His answer, which I found fascinating, was about the supply of F# programmers, both in numbers and cost. There is a lot of debate in the comments, and I find it interesting how differently many people see the world with regards to this issue.

    I think about this as we look at NoSQL platforms, or even other RDBMSes. How easy would it be to dramatically port your software to another data store? Probably not easy, and not inexpensive. The time for training and rewriting code would be very expensive, so much so that it’s often not worth the effort. However the more esoteric your choice of platform, the more difficult it can be to find staff that can even manage your system.

    I don’t think any of the main RDBMSes have a shortage of talented people, but I do think that it can be hard to find employees in some of the NoSQL systems. While I think most smart people could learn a new system, it has to be worth it to your organization to pay someone to learn a new skill.

    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.