Voice of the DBA

Category: Editorial

  • No Compelling Reason

    When I’m talking to people working with SQL Server, many of them are quite pleased with the platform. It solves their issues and problems. While they always wants changes and improvements, not to mention bug fixes, overall most people seem happy with their particular version. However, there’s no shortage of things that are slightly broken in SQL Server, and while I appreciate the Cumulative Updates every other month, I’d like to see even more work done fixing code.

    The development of SQL Server has accelerated in the last decade. After the five year span from SQL Server 2000 to 2005, we’ve seen new versions coming just over every 24 months, and I expect that to continue in the future. This rapid release cycle means that many of us end up supporting 3, 4, or more versions of the platform at any one time.

    We often install the latest version for new instances, often because that’s the only version we can buy at any time. However we don’t seem to upgrade older instances quickly. This week I’m wondering why.

    What are the reasons that prevent you from migrating those 2005/2008/2012 instances to 2014?

    Are there technical reasons you don’t upgrade? Is it cost-related? Or is there no compelling reason to adopt the newest features and enhancements to the platform? I suspect a combination of these reasons for many of you, though I also feel the platform is very mature, and has been for many versions. The applications I run, primarily SQLServerCentral, don’t really benefit from any of the features in later versions.

    Let us know this week, and I’m especially interested in knowing if there are technical reasons any of you can’t upgrade.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 2.2MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and LibSyn. feed

    The Voice of the DBA podcast features music by Everyday Jones. No relation, but I stumbled on to them and really like the music.

     

  • The Ten Commandments for DBAs

    I like lists, and this list certainly caught my eye: the 10 commandments of database management. It’s from a lead database architect that has experience with a variety of RDBMS’s as well as NoSQL technologies. It’s an interesting list, and one that tries to cover all the aspects of a DBA’s job.

    It’s a good list and for the most part it’s how I’ve tried to manage systems throughout my career. I believe in monitoring systems. I believe in testing backups. I believe in change management, though it doesn’t have to be heavy-handed. I think automation is key, and certainly DBAs should understand the pros and cons of their platform.

    However, I don’t know that I think upgrades should be completed for systems without some evaluation of the benefits and risks. These days, with releases of database platforms coming every 2-3 years, I’m not sure that I would want to upgrade many of my systems to each version. I might skip every 2-3 versions and upgrade rarely.

    I recognize that some of these can be outside the control of the DBA, but to the best of their ability, I do think a DBA should be looking to help developers, secure their systems, and choose the best systems to meet their needs, given whatever restrictions their organization puts on them.

    I don’t know that this is the best list of commandments for a DBA, but it’s certainly a great start. It’s also a good basis on which to conduct yourself as a DBA if you don’t have a well defined code you follow.

    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. 

  • The DBA Team Wants You!

    We’re looking for a few good DBAs. Actually, we’re looking for a few DBAs that wouldn’t mind sharing some of their human frailty and submitting the worst day they had as a DBA. Grant and I will be judging the entries and we’ll pick one to be the theme for our Christmas edition of the DBA Team.

    Don’t worry, we won’t make you ride a horse, but we’d like to feature you by name as we “enhance” your story with a few small additions. Perhaps you’ll be driving a fancy car, or be dressed to the nines. We might even have you performing a stunt or two.

    It won’t be pretty, probably not too flattering, but it should be fun. I haven’t heard if we will give out prizes to the top entries, but the winner will be relaxing Not Only SQL style in the sun, with a free ticket to SQL Cruise 2015.

    This contest should be some fun, and all it takes to enter is a little humility, a recognition of your mistakes, and a good sense of humor. If you’ve had a bad day, enter your submission and cross your fingers. And if you haven’t clicked through any of the links, you might want to. They make this editorial much more interesting.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 1.7MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and LibSyn. feed

    The Voice of the DBA podcast features music by Everyday Jones. No relation, but I stumbled on to them and really like the music.

  • Prepping for 2015

    It’s important that you regularly work on your career to continue to grow, and these days, ensure that you can find a job. It doesn’t matter if you’re a doctor, an electrician, a banker, or a technologist, the world seems to be regularly changing many of our jobs. Whether we need to deepen our current skills or learn a few new related ones, I think it’s just prudent to continue to develop yourself as a professional.

    I think it’s fun as well when you can learn a new skill or two.

    I ran across a post that talks about the top skills that will be in demand in 2015. There are 9 items, and while you should take this information with a grain of salt, it is an interesting list in a few ways. I would guess it’s fairly representative of those areas that recruiters are having a hard time finding people, so while your SQL Server, C#, Javascript, etc. skills are still valuable, adding one or more of these might help you feel a bit more confident you could get a new job if you needed one in 2015.

    PowerShell is the first skill listed, and I think it’s important. If you work in the Unix world, you probably already know how to script in one of the shells, and for Windows people, PowerShell is the equivalent. Whether you manage one server or 100, this can help you more consistently handle your environment. For SQL Server people, there are some very handy uses for Powershell, especially for file type operations or DR, so I think it’s worth learning.

    Many of the other skills like cloud computering, O365 and Google Apps, compliance, mobile, are more buzzword driven, but that doesn’t mean they’re not valuable skills. Managers hire people and write checks, and if they think some of these areas are worth implementing projects in, they’ll be jobs available.

    The last item listed is soft skills, and if you had to pick one area to work on, this would be the one I’d recommend for most of you. Soft skills translate to any company and any position. They are more and more important these days as scarcity of jobs mean that employers have choices, and when all your candidates have similar technical skills, the things that stand out are the people that communicate better, act as team players and can build bonds with others.

    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.