Voice of the DBA

Category: Editorial

  • Connection Issues

    Recently I was practicing for the keynote talk at the 2014 SQL in the City events. There were three of us in the “Ship Often, Ship Safe” talk, and we’d been practicing remotely. For the most part that meant a Skype call where we could work on timing and a Join.me share of a remote desktop to work on demos. The whole delivery became smoother and smoother as we got closer to the event, and I’m glad we spent a few weeks practicing (that’s important).

    However, we had an issue when we all arrived in London to practice. The first few run throughs, using a live laptop instead of a remote session, went much slower and less smoothly. In fact, the entire timing of the keynote was a problem because certain tasks were taking entirely too long. We were starting to think that we’d have to rewrite the talk in places, or take screen shots and show those.

    One of the presenters then suggested that we find a working network connection and retry our demos. It sounded a bit silly, but we relocated to a hotel room and connected to the network. Sure enough, everything ran faster.

    It turns out that there were various services, our own products, IE, and a few more that all had a few delays built in to check something across the network. Together, those delays added up to substantial time lags for various processes.

    While I think we’ve come a long way towards building amazing connectivity at high speeds, there are still plenty of times, including common tasks taking place in server rooms, where we don’t have a live connection to the Internet. I would hope that people would consider that the network might not be live and allow their services to continue to function if Internet access is not a core requirement. I suspect far, far too many developers still do not think of this.

    I don’t know that we’ll get better written software to allow for a lack of Internet access, but if you find things running slow, you might try enabling an Internet connection and seeing if your performance improves.

    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.

  • Pay It Forward

    There’s been a joke for years that responds to this question: what happens if I train my developers and they leave? The answer (and the joke) is this: what happens if you don’t train your developers and they stay?

    It’s rather stunning to me that companies don’t want to invest in the people that build their software. Software is one of the most valuable assets a company can create. However it’s not free, just as an investment in better machinery requires capital.

    I blame the MBAs in America (and possibly elsewhere) who started to look at the world very closely with a factory and accounting mentality, seeking to minimize, rather than just lower, costs, and treating far, far too many resources as homogeneous. That includes people, and the ill-conceived notion of human workers as “resources”.

    However I think that our industry has grown up with this idea that we are all tinkerers and like to learn on our own. We can learn on our own, and perhaps we can do so more efficiently than in a class. Classes far too often built and taught by a vendor that builds a product, but doesn’t use the software in the real world. There’s this idea that building software is easy and that we should be able to “pick it up” in our spare time.

    However many other industries invest in their employees, and spend time training them to work better. Doctors and nurses learn from other doctors and nurses. Accountants and lawyers attend continuing education, though often because they must do so for licensing reasons. Engineers study new techniques in their fields, but in these and many other industries, companies often give their employees time, funding, or experimental time in which they can improve their skills. Managers in other fields often recognize that people must continue to learn, or they will see their skills wane.

    Perhaps that’s where we should start. Let’s train managers to understand that training is important to produce higher quality software, faster.

    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.

     

  • Summit 2014

    The 2014 PASS Summit kicked off this week in Seattle. It’s a familiar location for those that have attended past events, as the conference has been held here more often than not. Plans are that it will be here for the next few years, so if you would like to attend, plan on a trip to the Pacific Northwest.

    My plan is to try and write a bit each day about the event and get that out to those of you that aren’t attending and share a bit about the experience. Don’t expect reports on late night activities as that’s not usually part of my day. My bedtime is likely in the 10:30 range, and I plan to be in the hotel most nights by that time. I also need to get things written by late afternoon, so some of the reporting may slide to the next day.

    Yesterday was SQL in the City – Seattle 2014 for me. This was our second event this year, and I’m assuming it was fun. I’ve written this in advance as I’ll be busy speaking at the event, meeting people, and then racing to the annual Networking Dinner that Andy Warren and I put on. I’m sure that’s fun as well.

    Today is my pre-con day. There were pre-cons yesterday (Monday) and more today. I’ll be in Allan Hirt’s The A to Z of Availability Groups. I’ve fumbled through AG setups myself, but it’s been confusing at times, and I know Allan is one of the experts, so I’m looking to shore up my knowledge. I’ll be taking lots of notes that I’ll be using in blog posts to document my knowledge later.

    I’ll link to pictures as I find them and add notes when I can. Hopefully I’ll get new posts out every day with some highlights and coverage of the event. I’ll be live blogging and live tweeting on Wednesday and Thursday, so look for some posts on the announcements and happenings, possibly with some sarcasm and humor, so take things with a grain of salt.  Hopefully you enjoy hearing about the event this week.

    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.

  • The Geek Costume

    It’s Halloween, and while many of you are too old to dress up in a costume, some of you may be planning on joining your kids for trick or treating, or even attending a party of some sort. It can be fun, though I have to admit that I’ve rarely dressed up as an adult. However if my kid asked me to, as Patton Oswalt’s did, I’d probably join in on the fun.

    There are not shortage of fictional heroes available for us as geeks. Many of us have admired characters from the science fiction, comic, fantasy, and other worlds. The various SQL Bits conferences have included some great themes, with steampunk this year and the medieval theme last year. There was even a Jedi sighting on Pass TV last year.

    This week, with the holiday in full swing tonight, I wanted to ask you a question on which costume you’d pick. Whether you have one ready or not for tonight answer this:

    Which costume would you choose to dress up in for an event?

    It could be a character from fiction, or even a device of some sort. Maybe you want to use technology to build an awesome costume? While I’d be tempted by the Indiana Jones look, I think I might choose something in the Batman genre if I had to.

    Let us know this week what you’d pick, have a safe holiday tonight, and have a great weekend.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 1.9MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and LibSyn.