Daily Coping 11 Dec 2020

Posted on December 11, 2020 by way0utwest

I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag. 

Today’s tip is to leave a positive message for someone else to find.

An unexpected note is something that can brighten someone’s day. If it’s a positive message, that is, and that’s the goal today.

One thing I do is keep chocolate around my house. My wife and daughter will have a craving periodically, usually every few weeks, and we’re not very close to any stores that sell chocolate they like. The cheap stuff at the local gas station doesn’t cut it. As a result, I keep a few bars around, usually hidden in the house.

My wife will ask me for some, but my daughter will just start hunting. I decided to not take a chance and just write a couple nice notes and tape them to the bars. That way the next time they find one (or I give them one), they get a surprise message.

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Reflections

Posted on December 11, 2020 by way0utwest

It’s nearing the end of the year, and usually this is a time where I look back at the current year and then forward to the new one. I’ll do some of that from a technical standpoint the last week of the year, but this week I wanted to do this from a personal standpoint.

I read Jen McCown’s “Reflections Not Resolutions” recently and it stood out to me as a way to look back at my life and career. Jen takes a moment to think about how her life and career may have gone, without much judgment, but with some appreciation. A positive view.

For me, I think professionally I turned inward a bit this year. Without events to go to, no travel, and struggles to cope at times, I could view my professional year like this:

  • I didn’t travel at all for work, but I did keep presenting at virtual events, and even learned to enjoy the experience, something I’ve disliked in the past.
  • I am amazed that I’ve written over 180 coping tips as part of the Redgate Community Circle, and used them to help me maintain productivity.
  • I struggled with maintaining connections with individuals and teams at Redgate, but I learned to appreciate how valuable those connections are. I am also looking forward to finding ways to improve this.

Personally, I found some insightful things.

  • The only airplane trip I had this year was before the pandemic, getting family together for my wife’s birthday in Las Vegas. Despite the effort, hassles, and money, I see the value in celebrating events together
  • I learned to listen, sympathize, and allow my kids to struggle with virtual school while just enjoying the chance to be with them
  • Coaching is a real joy for me. Having the spring season cut short, and next year’s season move was a challenge, but I really have enjoyed the limited opportunities I had to work with 2 groups of young athletes.
  • I rode horses more this year than ever before, acquiring a small modicum of skill, but enjoying the time to be with my wife in nature.

I’ll save my wishes for another day, but it was good for me to think about the losses, changes, gains, good times, and bad as I tried to put these thoughts down. I hope you take a few minutes and try it as well.

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Data Sovereignty Issues

Posted on December 10, 2020 by way0utwest

Many people think about the cloud for cost reasons first, often because they can transfer the expense from a capital to operating budgets. Others think about the flexibility the cloud vendors offer to spin systems up and down, change configurations, and adapt to requirements quicker than many internal groups can. A few consider scalability, where we can grow or add systems to meet our needs.

What about data sovereignty? I ran across an article recently that talked about the new SAS cloud on Azure, but located in different places for different reasons. Customers in the EU can use the German version of this. Those customers in the UK, because of Brexit, might choose the UK data center.

It’s an interesting idea, where we might not think about just which specifications and services we use, but where they are located. That can pose challenges for architects and software developers, who may need to route customer requests to different data stores, based on their location. I’d think this is easier for database professionals, as we just duplicate stores in different places.

This does mean that we’d need to manage backup, integrity, ETL flows, etc. in multiple locations, and we’d had the need to roll some data up across different data connections, but technology is making this easier all the time.

The legal requirements and protections of having data in different places are still being argued and worked out. Microsoft fought a battle, and there was some resolution for how to handle cross border data issues, but I’m not sure this is settled law yet. Time will tell, but if there is any value to customers in where data is located, I suspect some of us will need to consider how we store data in different physical locations.

Steve Jones

Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher or iTunes.

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Daily Coping 10 Dec 2020

Posted on December 10, 2020 by way0utwest

I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag. 

Today’s tip is to support a charity, cause, or campaign you really care about.

I did this recently, when Jeff Atwood was raising money for the Georgia Senate races in the US. I donated, entered his contest, and won an iPad. I didn’t expect to win, and donated because I wanted to, but this was a bonus.

20201201_153530

That inspired me to donate as well to Kiva. I’ve sent them money in the past, and did so again, giving them a little, and then lending out more to help others trying to grow their own businesses. I’ve had good luck with repayments, which let’s me lend again, but even when someone fails at their business, I’m glad I helped them make an attempt.

2020-12-02 16_44_31-Portfolio _ Kiva

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