Voice of the DBA

Category: Editorial

  • Staying Successful

    This is an interesting piece on data predictions. There’s a college that’s using data to help students, but not in the way you might think. Rather than customizing learning plans or finding more efficient ways to teach, the college is analyzing data to find students that might be struggling with college life overall and intervening early to help them cope with college and continue to move forward in their studies before they drop out.

    This is similar to something HP has done, trying to predict if employees might leave and intervene to see if something can be done. I heard an interview with the HP managers, who praised the program, and found they were among the most likely candidates to leave the company. However HP also realized that identifying people likely to leave allowed their HR people to try and find creative ways to retain their employees.

    I’m not entirely sure this is a process I’d like to be a part of, but it does seem like HP is doing well in their experiment. They realize they can’t solve every issue and keep every employee, but they can work proactively to try and reduce the losses. However privacy is a big part of this data analysis and I hope HP keeps that in mind as they move forward.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 1.8MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and LibSyn.

  • What’s Coming True?

    It’s the start of the new year, and the first day of work for many of us. As I start to work this year, I see that much of my work is based on that planning we did at the end of last year. We made predictions for our business, set goals, and today begin to execute on things. However, we are assuming our predictions are somewhat accurate in order to achieve success. What if our predictions aren’t correct?

    There’s no shortage of prognosticators out there, and I found a number of predictions about IT, the Cloud, and Microsoft. I have no idea if any of these will actually come true, but I wanted to ask you this week:

    Which of these predictions will come true in 2015?

    • Increased automation and less staff
    • more BYOD acceptance and support
    • More telecommuting
    • containerization of software in the cloud (or the data center)
    • More hybrid applications using the cloud
    • IoT growth – more sensors, more data for you
    • Windows 10 will be a hit
    • SQL Server 2015 will come out
    • Windows Phone will become competitive
    • You’ll get hacked at your company.
    • You will encrypt your databases?

    The IT trends listed are fairly general, and all of them are really underway now, so I’m not sure there’s much of a prediction there. For you individually, will you see more automation and less people? More BI and cloud usage? Any of the Microsoft predictions likely to come true? Do any these apply to your environment?

    This isn’t an exhaustive list, and certainly there’s lots of people expecting 3D printing and more mobile technologies to emerge. If you think any of these will, or won’t, definitely come true, take a vote and we’ll rerun this thread at the end of the year. If you have other predictions, let us know as well.

    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.

  • The 2015 Plan

    This is the last day of 2014, and we begin a new calendar year in 2015. It’s a time that many people make resolutions and I’ve got a few you might think about for 2015.

    The first one is that I’d urge you to be sure you find some balance in your life in 2015. Whether you’ve had balance or not, remember that life is short, and you never know when you will leave. I’ve had friends die early, and I was touched by recently reading this last post from Derek Miller. We can look forward, we can plan, but we never know what the future will bring and what life will drop in our path.

    If I look back at my life, there are many things I’ve chosen to do, or lived through, that I might not have imagined even five years before the experience. It’s unlikely that I’ll be able to guess with any accuracy what will happen in the next five. No matter what your beliefs, I do think that you must continue to live you life while you are on Earth, and hopefully the best parts of that life are outside of your career.

    That being said, while you find a balance with life outside of work, don’t neglect your career. For many of us, our careers have grown over time as we learn more and gain skills. Make time in 2015 to do this somehow. I’ve got two suggestions for you to work on building skills, no matter what your job.

    The first is to pursue a certification. I’ve been interested in Collen Morrow’s series on prepping for Exam 70-463. We can argue about whether the certification proves anything, but I do know something it does do. It guides your knowledge growth and gives you a goal. Both are good things that can help you improve your skills. It’s also motivating to learn new skills and pass a test. Colleen has inspired me a bit as this is the last exam I need for certification and I may follow along with her and take the test in 2015.

    The second thing I might suggest is tackle a project of your own. It could be a piece of software, a database design, a web site, anything at all. Build something, write about it, display it to the world. Whether it’s practical or not, whether it’s useful to others, it will showcase your skills in whatever areas you tackle. This also gives you a goal to work towards, as well as a potential resume item that can help you in your next job search.

    It’s amazing to think that 2015 starts tomorrow. I hope you all have a happy, safe, and enjoyable celebration tonight.

    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. 

  • 2014: The Review

    I tried to keep a running list of headlines from 2014, and as I look back at them, I find a few things standing out. The first item is that we got a new version of SQL Server. In April, SQL Server 2014 was released, which was a bit over two years after SQL Server 2012. There was a lot of interest and excitement in the Hekaton, In-Memory technology, but the reality of the limitations intruded and it seems relatively few people have been willing to upgrade for this technology.

    In fact, I might argue that apart from Hekaton, this wasn’t necessarily worthy of a full release. PowerBI, BPE, the cardinality estimator changes, some Azure improvements and AlwaysOn changes, all were included, but this felt like a bit of a mish-mosh of features. We didn’t see many of the technologies from previous versions (Service Broker, Contained DAtabases, SSRS, SSIS, etc) enhanced or improved. With the additional costs for core licensing that were introduced in SQL Server 2012, it still seems that many companies are trying to continue to use SQL Server 2008 R2 and below to handle their workloads where possible.

    This isn’t to say that the product hasn’t improved quite a bit. It’s just that the value received for the increased licensing costs is becoming lower. That concerns me a bit as other platforms mature at lower price points. We’ll see what this means as we move forward.

    It does seem that 2014 was year of the data breech. We had Target, Yahoo Mail, Home Depot, Kmart, Sony, and more. I know there were plenty more, but these were the top ones I tracked in 2014. I expect more to occur in 2015, and I would not be surprised to find more attacks against smaller companies as the techniques and tools used by hackers spread. I wouldn’t be surprised to find hackers practicing on smaller targets, like the companies you and I work for. Security will become more important, so learn more, set up auditing, and continue to improve your monitoring.

    This year we also see SQL Server really evolving for the professionals. We’ve had Hadoop use grow quite a bit, and a continued emphasis from Microsoft on the PowerPivot/Power Query/Tabular technologies. The press for BI technologies from both Microsoft and PASS, almost one and the same now, seems to be regular and consistent. I’m not sure if this push will become commonplace for most data professionals, but I do know quite a few BI consultants that are very busy. We will see how much adoption increases, but if more organizations don’t start using these technologies more, it’s not for a lack of trying.

    We had lots of events in 2014, over 20 for me, and I expect to see more opportunities, in more places, for people to learn about SQL Server. More SQL Saturdays, more smaller conferences, and of course, plenty of big conferences (DevConnections/DevIntersection/PASS Summit) to choose from. If you want an event near you in 2015, think about organizing one. It doesn’t have to be a ton or work if you can get 3-4 people to help, and it seems there is no shortage of speakers to help teach people about the platform. Send a note if you’re interested, and if you move quickly, maybe I’ll come.

    Steve Jones

     

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 4.2MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and LibSyn.