Voice of the DBA

Category: Editorial

  • Holiday Struggles

    It’s the slow time of year. As I saw tweeted recently, “And now for the month when nothing gets done.” I haven’t usually felt this way at a few jobs as the budget and planning process has typically been a part of a busy month. As I’ve run SQLServerCentral, I’ve also been looking back and forward this month, trying to think about our industry and data in a long term way. I have found December to be frenetic as times as I try to get in some ski days while still getting work done.

    However this year I’ve been in a situation that I think many people get into. I had a number of vacation days I needed to take, so I scheduled them a day here and there across the weeks. Between being off for Thanksgiving week, and missing almost the complete last two weeks of the year, I’m finding it a bit difficult to get into the swing of things as I have a few days back at work. It seems that work naturally slows down in teams as various people take holiday time off, but this is the first time that I’ve struggled to actually get my own work done as I’m in and out of the office on an irregular schedule.

    Perhaps this is the time when those of us who don’t work in Christmas related industries can catch up on work that we are often too busy to do otherwise. Are there maintenance items you can schedule? Maybe tackle some in-depth query tuning that is needed for end of year processes? Is it the time to “scratch an itch” at work? Red Gate has their Down Tools Week scheduled this week, and it’s a time when people can tackle fun projects that improve the business, but are rarely worked on. Our SQLServerCentral Scripts plug in for SSMS came out of one of these weeks.

    Pitch an idea to your boss to take a week or two and dig into something that is needed, but never prioritized. Maybe you’ll get your wish as a Christmas present.

    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.

  • What Have You Learned Lately?

    Recently we had the 60th T-SQL Tuesday blog party. This was hosted by Chris Yates, and had the theme of Something New Learned. That’s a great topic and a lot of fun to write about.

    There were some great posts, and while it’s good to see people participating, it’s also the chance for everyone in the community to learn a few things. I’d bookmark some of these posts, and across the next few months, read one and dig into the topic a little. Do you know about the PSR in SQL Server? Do you know how to determine who has access to what in your SQL Server?

    These posts, and many other posts written for the various T-SQL Tuesday events are a great way to dig into a particular topic area, learn a few things and help guide your learning. There have been a few times that the topic itself has gotten me to experiment with some aspect of SQL Server prior to writing something, but you could just as easily go back and look at previous topics and start improving your learning.

    While there are many sites like SQLServerCentral to help you learn new skills, it can be fun to pick a single topic and dive in for a few weeks, practicing using the skill to solve some problems. This might be a great way for those of you that aren’t challenged at work to gain some new skills.

    I’ve had far too many friends find the need to unexpectedly look for a new job in the last year. I never take my employment for granted, and it’s one reason I try to continue to learn more about my craft, and build skills that might be in demand. After all, you never know when your company might make a change and you’ll need to look for new employment.

    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.

  • Always Canary

    Deploying software is hard. Despite decades of experience working to update software smoothly, it seems that many of us tasked with that responsibility find ourselves nervous about making changes. This is especially true for database changes, where we must not only update the schema and code, but we must preserve the data as well. If only we could drop and recreate the database during every deployment.

    One of the ways in which you can make changes in a live environment is to have a second system already in place and running. With a second system available, you can stop the secondary system from handling user requests, make changes, test them, and if things are working well, you can have users connect to the updated system while you take the one one offline and perform your updates there.

    This is the same process that many people use to patch clustered database servers, though the “rolling upgrades” are usually done for patches from Microsoft. It would be great if we could easily apply this same system for our schema upgrades. Deploy our changes to the passive node, have the application able to connect to this node through some switch, test the changes, and if things are working, switch users over. The problem is that our databases on the passive node aren’t live.

    Really the ability to deploy database changes to a live system and perform checks requires a strong architecture in both the database and application to support this. Your code must be able to handle additions to the database objects without breaking. The use of feature flags, turning functionality on and off with switches, allows certain users to test new features without most clients being aware of the changes.

    It’s a pattern that more and more software companies are using when they want to deploy changes rapidly to systems for limited numbers of users. However it’s not a design pattern that is widely used. I hope we get more sample applications and reference architectures in the future that will help developers and DBAs code more robust and resilient applications, allowing changes to be deployed live without affecting every user.

    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. feed

  • The Value of Code

    It seems that many businesses can operate with a large margin for error. Managers can make some poor decisions, processes can be a bit inefficient, and employees can be disengaged, yet companies can still turn a profit. Non-profits, and certainly government organizations, can run without optimizing their work, much to the chagrin of many. However I continue to find companies that look for ways to not only become more efficient, but also to fundamentally alter their business models by better understanding their particular market. They can turn profits (or operate efficiently) far in excess of the averages for their industry with one tool: software.

    There’s a belief in many of these highly optimized companies that data contains lots of value, but in order to understand and harness the information contained within data, an enterprise must be willing to invest in better software. That requires better software developers. In a forward looking enterprise, that means lots of opportunity for those of us that work with data and build software.

    Those of us that create technical solutions need to learn to better interpret data and find ways to help our clients find and understand the patterns revealed by our software. Those of us that primarily manage data, need to better understand how software renders and showcases information compiled in our databases. We truly have the ability to reshape the way organizations run with our technological skills.

    Computing power continues to grow, accessibility to information improves, and our enterprises become more dependent on our systems. Now is the beginning of an era where we will have tremendous influence in helping change the way business works. I’d urge all of you to continue to look for new ways to manipulate data and find ways that showcase the value that software can bring to your organization. Even if your current company doesn’t value your skills, I bet another one will sometime in the future.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 2.3MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and LibSyn.