Voice of the DBA

Category: Editorial

  • Clouds, Costs, and Data Analytics

    cloud computing costs
    The costs of cloud computing should be lower than on-premises computing, if you pay attention.

    There are more and more companies using, or seriously considering, cloud based services. It’s a way to reduce some of the infrastructure costs, especially the initial investment costs, for many applications that have highly variable workloads. There’s also the tremendous amount of media attention being given to the subject of cloud services, which exerts pressure on all decision makers to consider moving to a cloud service.

    However are you really saving money with the cloud? The cost of the hardware and software usually ends up being a small part of the total cost of an application. Renting either hardware or software is an ongoing expense. It can have tax implications, and the calculations can be complex. It is important to analyze the costs and track what is being spent over time, as well as analyzing the amount of resources you use to determine if this is a good business decision.

    Apparently quite a few people realize this as there are a whole slew of companies that are willing to help you track, monitor and even analyze your costs. This article lists a number of them, some that even look to save you money where possible. That’s good because the calculators from some of the cloud vendors are extremely confusing. Not only that, but they’re relatively static calculators, whose values may change over time.

    Getting at your cloud data, and building a calculator of sorts is something most of us could do, but would we want to maintain it? Do you want to enhance it over time to work with the changing nature of the cloud? I’d think these services are worth using if you plan to use the cloud, especially those that analyze usage and suggest places to cut costs. There are lots of good and bad things about the cloud, but one thing is certain: you need to make sure someone is tracking your usage and eliminating unused systems. Otherwise you might not find yourself with any cost savings at all.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

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

  • Happy Fourth of July 2012

    The anniversary of the birth of my country is today. Many of you have the day off, which is nice, but inside of all the celebrations, cookouts, or other events, please think about re-reading the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution and think about what it means to be a citizen.

    That’s all the thoughts for today. Enjoy the blooper reels:

    Windows bloopers – 29.5MB WMV

    iPod bloopers – 23.1MB MP4

  • Fix Failures Fast

    broken hard drive
    You don’t need this kind of failure to consider replacing your hard disk.

    What makes PCs fail? Recently Microsoft Research published a research paper that looks at PC failures. The research spanned a million consumer PCs and examined failure rates and the suspected causes of those failures. The data came from the Windows Error Reporting system that runs after crashed inside of Windows, so this data doesn’t include other operating systems. It also is for fatal errors, those resulting from system crashes and doesn’t include non-fatal errors.

    It’s an interesting read, though a little boring since it’s an academic style paper. It does have a few highlights thatcaught my eye. The first is that when a failure occurs, the chance of another failure occurring soon is high. That means that disk failures predict another failure is likely in the next 30 days. Server machines might be different, but those of you with consumer grade hardware might think about an immediate backup and the purchase of a hard disk replacement if you have a fatal disk error.

    There are other highlights that over-clocking can dramatically increase CPU failure rates. It isn’t completely clear if this means a shorter lifetime, but if you’re like me, having errors that crash systems is incredibly annoying and time consuming, so I’m not sure I’d ever want a system over-clocked. There was another interesting point that said CPUs and RAM in white box (non-OEM) machines was less reliable than brand name systems. I struggle to see how a CPU would be less reliable, but that was part of the analysis. I’m not sure that would stop me from purchasing my own parts in the future, but it is something to keep in mind. Perhaps you should burn in the machine as soon as you can to allow for a parts return if you have issues.

    Laptops were more reliable, which was surprising, and also comforting since most IT pros I know use laptops. People tend to keep old memory around, which can wear out over time, so be careful about moving memory from machine to machine. There weren’t a tremendous number of surprises in the study, but it did make me appreciate my long running desktop that rarely reboots, and even more rarely crashes. I was pleased to see such a detailed analysis being undertaken by Microsoft Research using data from actual Windows systems. Hopefully there are engineers also looking at the data and improving the OS as well.

    Steve Jones

    The research paper for this editorial was highlighted in the Brent Ozar, PLF newsletter.

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

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

  • Security and Honesty

    Ladder of Disclosure
    I really think we need better disclosure on security issues.

    Information is power. That’s been a saying I’ve lived by as a data professional for years. That has guided me to capture additional data in applications, often data business users did not think was important initially. The power of information led me to monitor my servers, and proactively look for ways to improve performance. Using resources like SQLServerCentral allowed me to learn about what others were doing, what worked, and what didn’t. The dissemination of information has helped me to have a successful career as a DBA.

    When I see articles like this one, where companies are not disclosing the security issues they face, I worry that our industry is not advancing as quickly as it can. It’s important for us to share technical challenges and solutions among as many people as possible in technology. Our systems are complex, the sheer number of technologies is overwhelming for any one person or even company. The vulnerabilities, bugs, and attacks outweigh the technologies by far, yet our employers so often do not want to disclose any issues for fear of bad publicity.

    It’s time that this was required. Every company gets attacked, and probably most get hacked in some way. Rather than prevent that they are invulnerable, make the information public, or at least public to other IT workers. It doesn’t have to be a press release from your company, but companies should be required to disclose the problems they’ve had, the vulnerabilities they faced, and the mitigation measures. I don’t want to invite attacks, but I also think that we are building more and more poorly developer applications on top of poorly architected foundations.

    Within a reasonable time, companies ought to be forced to disclose the issues. They don’t have to fix them, but the disclosure might just encourage them to spend a little more time ensuring that their infrastructure is protected.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

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