Voice of the DBA

Category: Editorial

  • In Case of Breach


    What would you do if you received a phone call in the middle of the night saying that one of your databases had been hacked and data released? Do you know what to do as a first responder? There’s a report from Dark Reading that talks about some of the things you might want to consider.

    Crisis situations, and this is definitely one, require some planning and thought ahead of time. You ought to have some sort of “run book” similar to the one you have for disaster recovery, that helps you decide how to handle the situation. Unlike many troubleshooting situations, rebooting a server might be the worst thing you can do.

    I used to think that database people were more insulated from responding to these types of crisis situations. It seemed early in my career that we would be backups for the system administrators, and not necessarily need to respond to a midnight call. However the last 5 years have shown that this type of call is more and more likely for all data professionals.

    As we store more and more data, of great importance to the organization, we should be more prepared to respond to these types of incidents. Financial, identity, medical, and other types of data are becoming mixed in with all sorts of business data. As we build warehouses and transfer data among more systems, the likelihood we have data needing strong protections increases.

    At the very least, we must educate ourselves on our legal responsibilities as the data profession moves forward. More and more laws are being passed and regulations applied to data, and a good data professional in the future needs to be aware of their responsibilities in this area.

    Steve Jones

  • Welcome to 2011

    It seems amazing that it is already 2011, and we’re ten years past the point when I expected there to be a manned mission to Jupiter. Or at least hoped it would have happened. We look forward to 2011, with many people expecting a new version of SQL Server to be released, along with many other technological advancements likely coming.

    The new year is a few days old, and I suspect a few of you have set some new years resolutions. Those are always hard to stick with, and it almost seems like failing to keep them is as much a tradition as making them.

    I read quite a few blogs last week talking about goals for 2011, and this is a good time to think about what you would like to accomplish in your career this year. I am trying to work through this myself, thinking about where I would like to take my life over the next year. Like many of you, I have to blend a busy family life, a job working for someone else, and professional goals into some strategy that fits into that ever limiting 24 hours we are stuck with each day.

    I think that putting these goals down is important. It helps to focus you, and regular review or reminders to check them can ensure that you will work on them. It’s easy to forget in which direction you want to go, because we get busy and are pulled in many different directions each day.

    This next year I am not sure what will be on my list, or even if I will have a list of goals for the year. The pace of change seems to almost dictate a shorter term set of goals, perhaps quarterly. I do think, however, that it’s important to have a list of things that you would like to accomplish in your career, and make an effort to progress through them on a regular basis.

    Steve Jones

    (originally published at http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Editorial/72059/)

  • Building Better Communication Skills

    The most valuable skill for your career.

    I think that one of the most valuable skills that someone in technology can have is the ability to communicate with others. It doesn’t matter whether you write code, rack servers, or sit in meetings with business people, it is important that you find a way to express clearly what you want, need, or would expect from someone else. If you can’t, you will find that you often struggle to get anything accomplished in an efficient manner.

    It’s possible that you can get by with verbal communications in many instances, but it seems that so much gets done by written communications of some sort. Especially these days where it seems that so much of the interaction between people takes place through email, IM, or even Twitter. We are constantly using some form of written text to convey information between each other.

    However it seems that many people don’t place a premium on building better writing skills. When I talk to many people at SQL Saturdays, most of them are hesitant to try something like blogging. The most common complaint: I hate writing.

    But we have to do it constantly at work and working on your writing skills will not only help you to communicate better, but it will also help you learn to better organize your own thoughts. You will have a better understanding of the logical thought process, which might even help you build better code.

    Steve Jones

    (originally published at http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Editorial/72122/

  • Enjoying the New Year

    The last 5 or 6 years, on this day, my family has gotten together with friends for an evening of games and fun at Dave and Busters before returning home for some movies or Rock Band until the wee hours of the morning. Tonight I expect to do the same, with some relatives in from out of town, making this one of our biggest parties ever.

    This is the last day of 2010, and most of us are starting to look forward to the new year. Next week will have us back to our jobs, and back to the proverbial “grind” as we are working with SQL Server. Hopefully this isn’t a busy weekend for you, and the last chance for a bit of a holiday before the new year.

    As such, I decided to make this a fun Friday poll, and ask for recommendations from you:

    What movies from 2010 would you recommend for the technologist this weekend?

    I haven’t seen a lot of movies in 2010, between a busy family life and travel for work, but I would like to relax and enjoy a couple this weekend. I just watched Sherlock Holmes over the Christmas break for the first time and enjoyed it. I think that one of the more enjoyable technological films of 2010 for me was Inception, which I saw a couple times while my wife paid to see it 5 times in the theater.

    As we close out this year, hopefully with a quiet day for most of you, share with us a suggestion for how we might enjoy ourselves away from work this weekend.

    Steve Jones