Voice of the DBA

Category: Editorial

  • Grow Your Skills

    SQL Server Books
    A large collection of books can help you improve your skills.

    The cloud is scary. Without a doubt the idea of outsourcing parts of your organization’s technology department should concern you if you manage systems. Anything outsourced, whether to another firm or automation, means there is less work for you to do. Even in the places where automation grows, we find that sometimes the growth of systems occurs so fast that there are still things for a worker to do, but that’s a losing battle in the long term. At some point the automation will catch up and less people will be needed to manage the systems.

    However the news isn’t all bad. There are some systems that will always be managed inside of a company. Whether because of regulatory requirements, performance needs, or even just the stubbornness of management, I am sure that some percentage of systems at most companies will remain in-house. Those will be the minority of systems in some places, and since many of us change jobs at some point in our careers, we should be concerned.

    I would argue that all of us working in technology should be looking to improve our skills in whatever field we work. However we should be growing the skills in the hard parts of our jobs, in the parts that we struggle to automate or describe. The easy parts of our jobs will become more automated, more likely to be managed by a tool or outsourced. The hard parts, the thoughtful parts, those are the skills we should concentrate on when improving our skills.

    Outsourcing isn’t all bad. As Toyota has outsourced some of their systems, they are not looking to shrink their IT department. Instead they are focusing on delivering new products and services for their customers. Make sure you are prepared to take advantage of new opportunities if your company follows a similar path.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

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

  • Grow Your Skills

    Look to grow your skills on a regular basis.

    The cloud is scary. Without a doubt the idea of outsourcing parts of your organization’s technology department should concern you if you manage systems. Anything outsourced, whether to another firm or automation, means there is less work for you to do. Even in the places where automation grows, we find that sometimes the growth of systems occurs so fast that there are still things for a worker to do, but that’s a losing battle in the long term. At some point the automation will catch up and less people will be needed to manage the systems.

    However the news isn’t all bad. There are some systems that will always be managed inside of a company. Whether because of regulatory requirements, performance needs, or even just the stubbornness of management, I am sure that some percentage of systems at most companies will remain in-house. Those will be the minority of systems in some places, and since many of us change jobs at some point in our careers, we should be concerned.

    I would argue that all of us working in technology should be looking to improve our skills in whatever field we work. However we should be growing the skills in the hard parts of our jobs, in the parts that we struggle to automate or describe. The easy parts of our jobs will become more automated, more likely to be managed by a tool or outsourced. The hard parts, the thoughtful parts, those are the skills we should concentrate on when improving our skills.

    Outsourcing isn’t all bad. As Toyota has outsourced some of their systems, they are not looking to shrink their IT department. Instead they are focusing on delivering new products and services for their customers. Make sure you are prepared to take advantage of new opportunities if your company follows a similar path.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

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

  • Feedback is Encouraged

    Most of us have complaints and criticisms of the software we use, including SQL Server. We see the failings of the software, the places where it forces us to work harder than we’d expect to work to accomplish a task. That’s expected, since the design of any piece of software, from Notepad to SQL Server, involves design decisions that are geared to solve some problems, not all problems.

    As a side note, this is one of the places where third party tools can improve the operation of software that allows plug ins. Small companies often build utilities that solve specific problems, and if you are irritated by something in SQL Server, consider looking at third party tools. My employer, Red Gate software makes software designed to make the DBA or developers’ job easier, but there are some great tools out there from execution plan explorers to reporting add ins for SQL Server.

    However Microsoft does try to improve SQL Server regularly. This week I saw Chris Webb note that the SSAS team is looking for feedback. In the past we’ve run various surveys at SQLServerCentral for Microsot and as an MVP, I’ve noted that more and more of the specialized groups working ont he SQL Server platform are sending out surveys about their particular features. I’ve seen Microsoft ask for feedback on how the platform is working for you.

    Change doesn’t always occur as fast as we’d like, and there have been no shortage of issues with the Connect system, but I have seen it work well in a number of cases. I do think Microsoft is listening, and I appreciate that. However I also realize that my feedback is just an opinion, not a vote in what gets implemented in the next version of SQL Server.

    I encourage you to give feedback when you get the chance. Your particular suggestion or bug might not seem important, but if enough customers submit the same feedback, I’m sure it will get implemented in the platform.

  • Staging Deployments

    Deployments are hard. We added Migration scripts in SQL Compare to help.

    Software development can be a complicated dance. Most of us do not work for a software vendor and don’t have the strict requirements for our deployments when we control the client systems. That doesn’t mean it’s easier for us, especially as our environments grow more complex and the availability of our systems becomes more important. Application changes can become disconnected from the database changes, especially when the scope or scale of the change is large, which can present problems.

    Making database changes can be challenging since we must ensure that our data is not lost as objects are altered. We have to ensure that any application functions that depend on a certain schema receive the data they need, without unnecessary errors. The timing of changes becomes more important in the database than in applications in many situations. This Friday I am curious how many of you decide to stage these changes in your environment. If you have dependent changes, I’m wondering if you might alter the database first and change the application in a later deployment.

    How many of you deploy database changes before code changes?

    By “before” I mean you deploy the database changes, possibly making some application changes, but there are other code changes deferred for a separate deployment at a later time. The use of views, defaults, optional parameters and more allow database changes to proceed without accompanying application changes. It may require a bit more work, but the database can potentially be changed during a less busy time, even if development or testing for the all the application changes is not complete.

    The future will require more availability and stability from our systems as they become more essential to our organizations. Learning to update software, and databases, with minimal disruption is a skill that will set you apart in the future.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

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