Voice of the DBA

Category: Editorial

  • Separation of Duty

     In the Vietnam war we found people gathering data that had to support the analysis or decisions of the leaders. That’s a fundamental problem. Arguably this led to the extension of the war, and more lives lost, without more decisive actions being taken.

    We should not have the people or systems designed to collect data that supports a particular position. We want data that is accurate and complete, which can then be used for analysis. We ought to have people gathering data separate, both in terms of hierarchy and process, from the people that analyze and make decisions. We know that keeping them in the same area leads to data that supports what the boss wants, or what the bonus warrants, rather than what the data can show.

    Have you heard of the Franklin Gambit? I was reminded of that recently while reading Obliquity, a book that examines how we pursue goals and achieve success. Franklin’s Gambit says that we often use data and explanations to justify a decision we’ve already reached, rather than actually prove that some choice is the best one. I’m sure most of you feel you don’t live your live this way, but as I’ve thought about some of my decisions, I think this isn’t necessarily true.
    It’s a natural tendency of humans to do justify their actions, regardless of the data, and I suspect many of us suffer from it. I think it also can extend to the data analysis and interpretation that many of us perform at work. We’d like to think that our reports and even data gathering are objective ways to examine a problem, but it can be easy to influence the data, especially in the way that data is gathered if we are not careful.
    We want to separate the data gathering from the analysis. It might not ensure that the data analyzed is as complete and accurate as possible, but it helps prevent one side from influencing the other.

  • Winning

    “From the beginning to the end, losers lose, winners win” – 50 Cent

    It’s not always true, and there are no guarantees, but it is clear that those who put effort into improving themselves, often find more opportunities and the chance to succeed.  The definition of success may vary among all of us, but I would guess that succeeding for most of us has something to do with accomplishing more in some endeavor. Whether that’s getting more work finished, or improving the quality of our craftsmanship, it’s a movement forward. It’s winning.

    “Winners train, losers complain” – Brian Kelley

    I was reminded that not everyone looks at the world as a war, or as a zero sum game. There are lots of people that view the world as an environment where we can each improve, and help each other do better than we might on our own. However we must work on our own. We must take the responsibility to do something, not just talk about it, and not wait passively by as life passes us by. We also can’t just complain about our jobs, about the demands we face, the compensation that’s lacking, or anything else.

    This industry gives us the opportunities to change positions, learn new skills, and grow our compensation faster than many other fields. However it’s up to us to make the effort, stop making excuses, and start getting things done.

    Steve Jones

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    Today’s podcast features music by Everyday Jones. No relation, but I stumbled on to them and really like the music. Support this great duo at www.everydayjones.com.

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  • The School Year

    It’s August and for many people in the world that means that school will be starting sometime this month. My children have a little over two weeks left before they begin, with the mourning for the end of summer break already beginning. Some of us that work at a career for a living will also be starting school. People are pursuing advanced degrees, such as a PhD or MBA, while still managing a full time job, with their workload about to increase this fall as well. However most of us aren’t in either of these situations, and we go to work each day, but come home and (hopefully) enjoy the rest of our lives with family, pursuing hobbies, or some other activity.

    However many of us do have some leisure time that we could redirect to another endeavor. Working in technology can be a stressful, time consuming job at times, but it can also be a fairly easy job, physically. Many of us understand our environments and can often complete our jobs in a reasonable number of hours each week. It’s also a job that often compensates us very well. However it’s a field that demands regular skill improvement for success, security, and opportunity.

    With that idea in mind, I wanted to ask you to think about the rest of the coming year. If you aren’t overloaded at work, and you treat the next few months as the beginning of a school term, how would you answer this question?

    What will you learn this semester?

    Learning new skills can make your job easier (Powershell, administrators?). It might bring new opportunities or projects your way (Powerpivot/Powerview/Hadoop). It might even find you a new job, one that suits you better in some way if you blog about what you are learning and build a project. Learning is almost never time wasted, if you have the time in your life. Consider taking on a small project, working your way through a Stairway series or book, or learning some new skill this fall.

    This time of year is busy for me. I have eight more flights and events booked across the next few months, and a few new presentations to develop and practice. However I’m hoping to find a few minutes each day to work my way through a C# book and improve my skills in that area. I haven’t built any front end software in years, apart from simple web interfaces, and I’d like to bone up some skills, which might bring new opportunities, but will also benefit my job where I need to create some content around the Deployment Manager product, in C#, and hopefully well done. No matter how it turns out, I’m sure I’ll have learned something, and probably had some fun.

    Steve Jones

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    Today’s podcast features music by Everyday Jones. No relation, but I stumbled on to them and really like the music. Support this great duo at www.everydayjones.com.

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  • The Human Touch

    How often does human error cause issues? Recently we had a rocket crash in Russia,there have been numerous incidents of drone crashes as more and more unmanned aircraft take to the skies, and a few years ago we had an Air France disaster that might have been cause by humans making poor decisions or engaging the wrong controls. Those are incidents where the wrong button press has large consequences, either in physical damage or the loss of life.

    Many of us make mistakes constantly as we work in the various tools and environments we need throughout our day. We click the wrong button in SSMS, we connect to the wrong server and run a script, or we fail to test a change. All of these are mistakes made by humans, and often are mistakes that can be prevented if we did a better job or sticking to routines and processes. That can be hard, but perhaps checklists can help here, along with some double checks by coworkers.

    That’s why I think using scripts in T-SQL, and using the Script button in SSMS to generate the code that you can run (and save) is the best way to work with your servers. As much as I think Powershell (PoSh) can be a pain to write and debug, there’s a good argument to be made for using it when performing complex administrative tasks, especially across servers. Using code rather than forms and buttons is just a better way to accurately and consistently make changes in a controller manner.

    This is an area where everyone could work more efficiently. Developers are usually used to working with version control systems and tracking all their changes. However they often will make configuration changes to their machines, SQL Server, IIS, or some other software, and forget to track the changes. Making these changes in code, through T-SQL or PoSh, and tracking these items in VCS, would help with smoothing software deployments. DBAs and other operations staff should learn to use version control systems  as well, helping to track down root causes to issues.

    Ultimately humans are often the weaknesses in most systems. We should understand that, accept it, and compensate as best we can.

    Steve Jones

    Video and Audio versions

    Today’s podcast features music by Everyday Jones. No relation, but I stumbled on to them and really like the music. Support this great duo at www.everydayjones.com.

    Follow Steve Jones on Twitter to find links and database related items and announcements.
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