Voice of the DBA

Category: Editorial

  • Windows Phone 7

    The Windows Phone 7 (WP7) devices are out, and recently at conferences all around there were a  number of people sporting the new devices and blogging, tweeting, and more about their new toys. Since I tend to know many people that work in the Microsoft world, there was a lot more buzz about the phone at recent events than I’ve seen elsewhere. It seems that finally Windows phones are a worthy competitor to the Android and iPhone devices.

    A good friend of mine, a Windows infrastructure guru, sent me this early review of WP7, with the idea that it might convince me to switch from my iPhone and give it a try. That’s not likely to happen anytime soon as I like my iPhone and don’t really see a compelling reason to change. To me the important thing is the platform and the coverage. While I get decent, not great, coverage from T-Mobile, I am tempted to switch to Sprint or Verizon. If they had an iPhone, I’d move tomorrow.

    The platform is the bigger deal for me. I had an Android phone, and while I liked it, the platform wasn’t mature. There were relatively few applications that I wanted and many were not stable. Things have changed, but I’m still not sure it’s quite mature enough for me. WP7 might get there, but right now I am sure its platform is much less mature than the others. We’ll see if Microsoft can change that.

    One thing in the review that I found very, very interesting was in part 9 of the review. The author mentions that WP7 is changing the game by understanding that the user is the center of the device, not the applications, and it seeks to better blend the core data, the information the user has across different applications. It’s an interesting idea that the data a person has (photos, music, contacts, etc.) should be overlaid across applications. The data is the most important thing to me and finding ways to better integrate it is important to me.

    I don’t know what many of you think of WP7, but it might be worth taking a look if you want a new smartphone. And if you don’t have a smartphone, I’d encourage you to look at them. I know that all the major platforms (WP7, Android, iOS) have made me much more productive over the last few years.

    Steve Jones

  • Security by Obscurity

    This is an editorial reprint from Aug 23, 2005

    I wrote awhile back about security through chaos, and that piece provoked some interesting responses. While I’m not sure I’d recommend it for every company, in some places it makes sense. I saw this Info World article on Security by Obscurity and it reminded me of what I’d written.

    The article talks about some basic things you can do to that don’t seem like much, but the suggestions obscure things and ensure that not much on your system is as it would be expected. One simple thing they talk about is not installing to the default locations. That doesn’t sound like it would help much as there are always ways to read the registry or use environmental variables to find installations.

    However it does work. How many pieces of software, including some SQL Server Service Packs, expect things to be installed on c:? How often have you been bitten by a “bug” in some software because you’d renamed or moved something?

    Computer software depends on patterns in many cases to work. And we all use patterns to shorten development time. We reuse code, we cut and past way too much, and we often forget to make simple checks for things being moved around.

    The same goes for virus and worm writers. The people who develop the technology might not be fooled, but so many script kiddies that use kits of modify some piece of code aren’t as savvy and don’t necessarily make these checks. I know that the administrator account has a particular SID that you can scan for, but I’d be willing to bet that most people would write a worm looking for “administrator”. Just think how much less of a problem SQL Slammer would have been if most people had moved SQL Server to some non-default port.

    Simple obfuscating changes aren’t the answer to security issues, but they provide another layer of protection.

  • Little Devices

    It seems that I get more and more done with my smartphone all the time. I find myself responding to lots of emails, having text or Twitter conversations, taking pictures, reading, even making notes on my iPhone. I can’t imagine every going back to a non-smartphone device. Whether it’s an iPhone, Android, or WinMo 7 device, I have found that they make me quite productive throughout the day.

    I was just starting to get away from plain phones when I last worked for a large corporation. These days, I see many of my friends sporting smart phones, and getting work done on them. I even have one Windows administrator friend that carries an iPad around work, RDP’ing into servers to handle small tasks.

    So I wonder how many database people can get things done. Since it’s Friday, I thought that it would make an interesting poll:

    How much of your work could you get done from a mobile device.

    I’m wondering if there is a chance that you can see a good portion of your administration, monitoring, or even daily work done from some device that isn’t a full size laptop? It could be a smartphone (Android, iOS, WinMo) or even a tablet (iPad/Galaxy) that allows you to actually knock things off your to-do list when you are away from your desk or don’t have a laptop.

    If you’ve never used a mobile device for doing work, please don’t complain about them. They are great devices and they’ve made me very productive when I can’t sit at a desk or carry a laptop. I think many others agree, and I’m interested in seeing how use mobile devices.

    Steve Jones

    If you’re a DBA, you might want to check out SQL Monitor, from my employer, Red Gate Software. Maybe your boss will let you get a copy and an iPad to manage your servers.

  • The DBA Disconnect

    We all know that security is an issue that we have to pay attention to. At least, those technical people that feel responsible for the security of their systems feel this way. However a short article referencing a DBA survey shows that the rest of the business might not be in sync with the technical people.

    I think most DBAs don’t know what a data breach would cost their company. I’m sure that’s not a number that most places I have worked would even bother calculating. Of course, most places probably would have no clue if there were a data breach in the first place.

    This puts many technical people in a bad position. They want to do a good job, but management often wants to just give lip service to security. When it comes down to it, the performance, availability and convenience of database servers is much more important than good security to many companies. From allowing access for developers or applications with privileged accounts to preventing password changes because of hard coded entries, it seems that companies aren’t that concerned about security in many cases.

    Ultimately some external  force is needed for us to make security a priority. It could be through regulation, insurance from lawsuits, or something else, but I don’t have any confidence that companies are going to take security seriously. However you can do some little things yourself, like making sure there are no default passwords open on your systems.

    Steve Jones