Voice of the DBA

Category: Editorial

  • Impressive Accomplishments

    What things make you think a candidate is a superstar?
    What things make you think a candidate is a superstar?

    Most of us have had an interview or two in our lives. We’ve had to assemble a resume or CV, create cover letters, and practice answering questions in preparation for an interview. In all of these things, we are looking for ways to market our past work and present it in the best light as evidence that we will make a good employee in our next position.

    We each have our own experiences, successes, and failures, but we aren’t bound by what’s happened in our career so far. We have the ability to shape our brand for the future by making changes in the way we approach our career from this day forward. I have a talk and blog on this subject, but I certainly don’t have all the answers. I’m always looking for more ideas and suggestions to help people and wanted to ask for your ideas this week.

    What would impress you most about a job candidate?

    Is there something that you’ve seen or heard about in the past that impressed you? If a candidate had written a book, or created some software, would that make you look upon them favorably? I know that a candidate needs to present themselves well in an interview and be able to write SQL, or manage an instance, but when you are examining dozens of resumes, is there something that stands out?

    Take a moment and tell us what has impressed you in the past, and whether it was an indicator of a good employee or not.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

    We publish three versions of the podcast each day for you to enjoy.

  • Bring Solutions

    Solutions are the most important thing you can develop at your job.
    Solutions are the most important thing you can develop at your job.

    What’s your job? Most of you will answer “DBA”, or “developer”, or “manager”, or something that corresponds to your title. That’s partially true, but for the most part if you are in Information Technology, I think your job is to solve problems. You should ensure that your systems, or your code, or whatever you work on, is running smoothly for the people that use them.

    That isn’t always possible. There will be times that things break, that bugs crop up or systems fail. When that happens, people don’t want to hear about the inherent problems, or even what went wrong. They might ask, and they might be curious, but really what they want to know is when will the system be fixed and what will it cost.

    I’ve never had a manager that was really interested in the problems that caused a failure when systems were down. I’ve rarely had managers interested in potential problems I’ve noticed in our organization. Managers might be curious about the issues, but they don’t want you to bring them problems. They want you to bring them solutions when you see a problem, multiple choices to fix things, and a recommendation for the option you feel is best. They want a solution that works well, doesn’t cost a lot, and can be implemented quickly.

    Competition for jobs gets more intense all the time and the employees that look for problems and provide solutions without being asked will be the most valuable. They will stand out from their peers and are more likely to not only keep their jobs during down times, but will get asked to solve the interesting and challenging problems.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

    We publish three versions of the podcast each day for you to enjoy.

  • The Group Account

    We want to avoid anonymity as well as too rigid security. Delegation is something we need in all our systems.
    We want to avoid anonymity as well as too rigid security. Delegation is something we need in all our systems.

    Managing security for groups, allowing access is selective ways to different individuals is hard. However it’s also something that many DBAs do on a regular basis. We deal with the challenges of row level security and tying particular pieces of data to particular individuals, groups, or other pieces of data. We work to ensure security and systems are flexible, allowing for disparate requirements to be managed with rights, schemas, and other mechanisms. And many of us do it well.

    I was reminded of the hard work we do with security when I read this piece on family accounts and the lack of support from Amazon and Apple. There are any number of comments and criticisms of the idea from people that ecosystems are bad ideas, or supporters of this idea have trust issues. Those are valid criticisms of the process, but that doesn’t change the fact that as our digital world has grown more closely linked, and many of us do want ways to share some of our digital assets with others, while retaining our privacy.

    This isn’t just a family concern, as many vendors don’t manage customer accounts well with all kinds of software. I’ve encountered many situations where an employee registers software under their email account and subsequently leaves for a new job. Finding licenses or being notified of patches becomes a problem, especially when the new administrator is often searching for information in some sort of disaster situation.

    I don’t have a great solution, but I do know that we want the ability to share assets, in much the same we could lend a book or wrench, or car to someone else in the physical world. At some point our cars, other secure application software, maybe even our databases will be authenticated in more secure ways. The future digital software that doesn’t allow for the re-assignment or information or rights to other individuals in an easy and secure manner will fail us.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

    We publish three versions of the podcast each day for you to enjoy.

  • Practicing Deployments

    Practice makes perfect, especially for deployments.
    Practice makes perfect, especially for deployments.

    It’s said that amateurs practice until they can get something right. Professionals practice until they don’t get something wrong. That’s the idea, and while professionals make mistakes, they make far fewer than those that don’t approach their craft as a professional task.

    Many of us in the data industry develop software in some way. Whether we write queries in T-SQL or build projects in .NET, we produce code to accomplish some task. I’d like to think that many of us improve our skills over time, preferably by practicing new techniques and learning from our mistakes. I know some people stick with the tried and true methods without gaining skill over time, which not only hurts one’s career, but also doesn’t give an employer a reason to value their work.

    However the deployment of software, which encompasses more than the developer(s), doesn’t improve in many cases. Deployment includes operational people’s skills, scheduling dowtime with clients, possible even the briefing of support personel. However the whole process is often performed poorly. Deployments fail, or require more time than expected. People view them as a pain, and software deployment tends to happen less often than it could, resulting in a large software inventory.

    There’s a great quote from James Moore on how we can deploy software better: “…deployments are hard, but rather than long-winded planning, they need constant practice, testing and refining, and we could only do this by deploying early.” Red Gate Software has learned that deploying more often results in the company gaining skill in deploying software, resulting in more successful software changes in applications.

    The improvement you make in your software can bring tremendous value to your clients, but only if they can use those features in the software. Learning to push those changes out in a repeatable, professional manner is a great way to ensure your clients and customers trust you to deliver new features and enhancements that meet their needs.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

    We publish three versions of the podcast each day for you to enjoy.