Voice of the DBA

Category: Editorial

  • TTYL

    Please don’t communicate like this in business.

    Today’s editorial was originally released on Nov 20, 2007. It is being republished as Steve is at DevConnections.

    OMG! The DB if FUBAR.

    The sysop added an HDD and did a RAID rebuild OTF. AFAIK, the Vol with the MDFs got wiped for the CRM that runs 24/7.

    I’m ROFLMAO. AWHFY? TTYL.

    Can you imagine someone talking to you like that. I mean actually speaking with “words” like “T-T-Y-L?”

    I saw this article about how most people are speaking English in business today, but with the globalization of many companies, it’s easy to not only mis-communicate, but also offend. And that can be a big problem with not only co-workers, but also customers.

    Whether we standardize on English or some other communication, I hope that we continue to keep the skills of our language alive. The new generation of workers, working in shorthands and their own slang, seem to be losing out on the ability to effectively communicate with others. Too often they want to bang something out on a keyboard rather than talking directly to someone.

    I’m sure I sound like an old man, lamenting the good old days of paper, ink, and phones without voicemail. However it’s not the shorthand or slang that bothers me as much as the lack of the ability to clearly articulate themselves that plagues many people in the IT world. When I started in this business, it was always an issue communicating because things were so highly technical and few people understood how computers worked. The geeks that could truly make a computer sing had trouble communicating with business users.

    I think the same thing is true today with communication, despite the advances in making computer interations simpler, greater familiarity, and a comfort level with technology by many business users. For every step we’ve made in computing becoming more accepted by users in all aspects of society, we’ve gotten worse in our overall communication skills with acronym and shorthand overload. I almost shudder to think of the text-messaging generation entering the workforce.

    Technical jargon is important. It helps us quickly, clearly, and easily communicate with other IT workers with very specific meanings, but it’s not the way that we should communicate with those outside of IT. Even if you are never any type of analyst, designer, architect, it pays to be able to clearly and effectively communicate your ideas, thoughts, and concerns to others.

    Save the shorthand and slang for those times when it’s appropriate and be sure that you can communicate using clear and generally accepted English (or your native language) with everyone else you encounter in your career.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

    Everyday Jones

    The podcast feeds are now available at sqlservercentral.podshow.comto get better bandwidth and maybe a little more exposure :). Comments are definitely appreciated and wanted, and you can get feeds from there.

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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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  • DBA Support

    There was a time when I managed two production databases on SQL Server. Two. I had a development version of one database where we paused development for testing, and only two production databases to manage. Since I had to also handle development, application support and hardware repair/replacement, that seemed like plenty to me. I was the accidental DBA, with database administration being the lowest priority of my day.

    After that I moved on to administer databases in a number of jobs, sometimes as a priority, sometimes not, but in each case, I learned to work more efficiently and effectively. My goal was to automate as much as possible of the routine work so that I could spend my days adding value to the company. I learned to use scripts, alerts, jobs, and more to keep systems running while I was doing other work.

    I’m sure many of you work in a similar manner, or at least I hope you do. This Friday I wanted to ask you at what scale do you need to become efficient, based on the size of your organization. The question this week is:

    How many databases does each DBA in your organization manage?

    I know some of you manage lots of databases in raw numbers, but also let us know if you need to do much with these databases. Is maintenance automated, or is there much active management you need to do in order to ensure these databases are running on a weekly basis. Let us know the size of your load as well, perhaps the amount of data is a better way of measuring the DBA load.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

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

  • A SQL Server Log Reader

    SQL Log Rescue
    It would be great to have a log reader built in. If you’re still on 2000, here’s a free one.

    One of the regular problems that data professionals have to deal with is the whoops disaster, or some type of data entry error. It could be the DBA running a delete without a WHERE clause, or a user updating a bunch of data incorrectly. No matter what the cause, this is a problem that you will deal with multiple times in your career. There are a few tools available that will read the SQL Server transaction log and build reversing transactions, but there are few, mostly because there’s just no money in the tools. People don’t need the tools often, and when they do, they are likely to just download an evaluation, fix their issue and not purchase the tool or struggle to undo the damage. As an aside, if you are still working with SQL Server 2000, Red Gate has released our Log Rescue tool for free.

    With every new version of SQL Server, there’s a lot of effort spent on building new features and enhancing old ones. Marketing and sales drive a lot of resource decisions in product development, and that makes a lot of sense. But it doesn’t mean that there isn’t value in plugging holes inside of the platform and making SQL Server easier to work with.

    A log reader tool would not be that hard to build and include in SQL Server. I’m sure Microsoft could build and release limited versions that might deconstruct certain types of statements, or might only read transaction log backups. I bet this would be a great intern project, allowing the very talented youth that spend a semester or two at Microsoft the chance to make an actual impact on the product. Back-ports to previous versions of SQL Server could be done with very little cost to Microsft, provide customers with a valuable tool, and allow college students to prove they are worthy of a future job working on the product.

    The ecosystem around Microsoft products is important, both for the growth of the platform as well as filling customers’ needs. Log readers, however, are not economical separate products. They ought to be incorporated into the platform, filling a hole that would greatly benefit lots of DBAs and developers who deal with incorrect data updates every day.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

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

  • Walk on the Wild Side

    lou reed walk on the wild side
    Have you ever worked on the other side of your shop?

    In my career, I’ve worked in a variety of environments and positions. I’ve been a developer, and a production DBA, sometimes at the same time. Many of us aren’t working in environments where we are strictly performing one job. We often flex our work to meet the needs of our organizations, doing whatever is needed to get the job done.

    However many of us spend most of our time either producing software or supporting it, sometimes separated from the other side by internal rules or even regulatory requirements. Those of us that are successful usually learn to make friends with the people doing the other kind of job and these relationships allow us to bend rules and regulations to get things done quickly. That can be a good thing, but it often doesn’t really give us any appreciation for the job that others do on a regular basis.

    In a few large companies I’ve worked in, management felt it was important that the developers or engineers spent some time in the operations area. People would rotate out of their area for a month and spend time working in another area, gaining skills that might allow them to provide support in an emergency, but more as a way of helping them understand the impact of their work and how they might go back to their job with a new perspective in the future. The ultimate goal was for design and development to proceed more efficiently and at a higher quality level. It worked well at times, but often failed if the developer didn’t embrace the temporary assignment with a positive attitude.

    I’ve rarely seen administrators sent to work with development groups. Usually an administrator has to have an interest in development and is interested in making a career change. However I think that there is value from giving administrators some exposure to the development process. They might realize how complex and tedious it can be, how seemingly obvious problems slip through, and perhaps most important, they might learn how to better troubleshoot issues in production systems.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

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