Voice of the DBA

Category: Editorial

  • Do You Want to be a DBA in Space?

    Not the trip for me, but it might be for you. Enter today.

    I had a chance to see a few of the DBA in Space videos before the contest was released and I shared them with my kids. My son’s first reaction was “can I go?” He couldn’t, but it did excite him a little to think about potentially going into space at some point in his life and he thought it was amazing that some average computer worker, like me, would get the chance. It’s an amazing contest and I’m still stunned that my employer, Red Gate Software, is offering it to anyone that works with databases.

    And that’s interesting. Developers, administrators, if you’re administering databases in any way, you’ve got a chance to enter the contest. You can get started now by signing up and going through all the videos, answering the questions as you go. The contest ends Friday, November 18, 2011, so there are a few days left to follow Brad McGehee on his space alien adventure and have fun with a few silly questions.

    I, however, wouldn’t go to space. I don’t like flying, and I’m not thrilled with heights, and it wouldn’t be my choice for a prize. I do know many people that love science fiction, the space program, and would be thrilled to go. If I could win (I’m not eligible), I’d take the cash alternative, $102,000, and probably take the trip of a lifetime. Maybe take the family and ski in Switzerland, maybe fly to Australia and enjoy surfing and diving down under with the kids, but definitely fly first class everywhere.

    Let your mind wander, ask your friends and family where they’re like to go? Would they have the adventure of a lifetime with you or would they think about sending you up in a rocket, as many of the Slashdotters want to do. It could be your choice, but only if you enter the contest this week.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

  • Network Databases? Is it time to change?

    Is it time to consider storing MDFs on NAS devices?

    In the two decades I’ve worked with SQL Server, there has been some advice that I’ve always given to people: don’t backup to the network, and don’t try to put a database on a file share. SQL Server hasn’t dealt with either of those situations well for most of my career, and they’ve been a regular source of issues for clients and posters to the forums at SQLServerCentral. Network technology, while quickly improving, was still flaky enough that I always recommend that people keep their data and backups local as a guideline.

    However technology evolves, and when it does, it’s time for the advice to change. Lately I have seen more and more people making backups across the network that seem very reliable. Even the tendency of Ethernet protocols to delay packets when collisions occur is mitigated by the increasingly common 1Gbps and 10Gbps network speeds that many companies are using. While I might still be a little nervous about running backups across the network, that’s my personal bias and I don’t know if I would continue to recommend against those backups.

    I was surprised, however, to see Kevin Farlee of Microsoft post a blog noting it might be time to reconsider the placement of data files on a network share. He outlines the improvements in technology and protocols that may make this a viable way to store our SQL Server databases in the future. It’s an interesting argument though I suspect that it is slightly premature for most of us.

    I do think that as networks become even more reliable, this is one way that we may better manage storage for data in the future, and perhaps see Shared Scalable Databases widely deployed as a way to scale out those read queries on other servers.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

  • The Industry Problem

    STEM subjects for Girl Scouts
    Do we need more STEM subject majors?

    The majority of the people that I know working in technology do not seem to have college degrees in computer science. I know many people with degrees in many other subjects, and quite a few people that don’t have a degree. In most of those cases, the successful individuals have worked in the real world and gathered their knowledge about technology through hard work across time. It also seems that many of the people I’ve met with CS degrees are often those that make he most mistakes in real world software development or system administration.

    Colleges don’t teach you all the skills you need in the real technology world. The best workers I know in this business are the most adaptable, thinking laterally about problems, and bringing flexible approaches to solving problems. With many surveys showing a shortage of technical talent likely in the next few years, we ought to be encouraging more people to enter the technology field.

    When I saw this article about college graduates in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) subjects, I had mixed feelings. On one hand I think that people growing up today need to be smarter, and more educated than ever before.  Expecting to coast through some job, whether it’s in technology, marketing, medicine, or any other field, on the basis of what you learn in your 20s is not acceptable. I think that a larger and larger percentage of the population needs to constantly improve their understanding of how technology works, learn how to find patterns in data and apply new concepts to solving problems, and use computer tools to perform more complex analysis of data. That would seem to require a heavier grounding in the STEM subjects, and perhaps more major concentrations in those areas.

    On the other hand, lateral thinking doesn’t necessarily come from heavy concentrations of one subject. The broad education that can come from different types of learning are invaluable, especially in a global, complex world that is growing every closer together. The success of so many friends that didn’t study STEM subjects makes me think that people can study anything, as long as it requires them to work hard, and learn to think through a series of challenges.

    There are many pundits noting that we have a shortage of workers in the technology area. If that’s true, then I’m not sure the solution is pushing more STEM subjects on students. Instead I think we need to provide people with a better image of working with technology, and excite them by the challenges and opportunities that are available to those that have chosen this career field.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

  • License by Core

    It had to change at some point in time. I’ve watched technology advance over the last few years, with dual core, quad core, and even up to twelve core processors appearing from Intel and AMD. With those advances, one of the huge advantages of choosing SQL Server over other RDBMS’s is that SQL Server has been licensed by physical socket rather than core licensing. For less cost, we have been getting more and more processing power for our CPU licenses. However with SQL Server 2012 being released next year sometime, that is due to change. Microsoft released initial licensing information and Denny Cherry (blog | @MrDenny) wrote a great post that helps explain how the licensing will be handled moving forward.

    SQL Server 2012 is coming next year

    Licensing is a strange topic for me. There are so many restrictions and decisions made by software companies as to how they will allow customers to use their products, it is not only confusing, it can be incredibly frustrating. For most DBAs, we don’t sign the checks to purchase the software, but we are charged with finding the best deals we can for our companies, and making the decisions about which editions are needed, how many licenses are appropriate and which type of license. We are also under pressure to minimize costs, which often results in lots of stress trying to make the best decision for our workload while ensuring compliance with vendor licensing.

    I’ve made my thoughts on licensing known before (I prefer licensing by scale only), but at least the new scheme for 2012 is fairly simple. We have fewer editions and we are licensing by cores, so sockets * cores = licenses needed. This is unlike Oracle, which has some strange math required for cores of different speeds. There are a few twists with virtualization, but it does appear that overall it’s a simpler scheme, although perhaps more expensive for some customers. There are some benefits for customers that upgrade licenses, so if you are considering moving servers to 2012, you might want to purchase SQL Server 2008 R2 licenses now. If you upgrade them later, it may be cheaper if you have larger servers, especially those with more than 4 cores per socket.

    With the ever increasing density of processing power in today’s CPUs, this changes seems fair to me. Microsoft can license SQL Server however they choose to do so, and I think the move to charging for cores makes sense. I would, however, like to see them just remove the feature restrictions and allow all features to exist in all editions of the product. We could build better applications and SQL Server would look to be a more polished product.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts