Building an Azure Architecture Diagram

Posted on July 27, 2020 by way0utwest

One of the challenges I have at times is illustrating how I’d set up a particular system. Not the technical details, the visual ones. I can use boxes and simple shapes in PowerPoint, and include some logos, but this always feels fairly unprofessional.

Fortunately Redgate has some icons and images I can use to illustrate how things work. I saw recently that Microsoft makes these available as well. There is an Azure Architecture Icons page.

The icons are svg, so while they work in PowerPoint, adding them to something like this post in OpenLiveWriter doesn’t work. However, I could make a quick diagram and capture an image of it.

2020-07-21 12_57_56-Presentation1 - PowerPoint

Not great, but it shows I can put icons on a page with arrows.

I would hope they’d make similar icons available for products and perhaps other features, like Azure Boards, Pipelines, and more. I haven’t seen official ones like this, but I hope I do.

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The Computing Revolution

Posted on July 27, 2020 by way0utwest

One of the keynotes at this year’s Build conference was on the Future of Tech. This was a mix of live talk and recorded pieces from Kevin Scott, CTO at Microsoft. This talk looks at the innovation of tech, with lots of AI/ML, but also with the idea that data is fundamental to the future. While he notes that there are different eras in computing as we have breakthroughs, one of the fundamental things that will change the world is the data explosion.

We constantly push through boundaries and past constraints that limited us just a few years ago. I can still remember a professor in college bragging about the 32MB of RAM in his Solaris workstation, at a time when many of us had 1,2, or maybe 4MB. I think about that each time I get a new device. In a generation of my life, we’ve grown an order of magnitude, and pushed into a new world where I don’t have an exponential level of computing on my desk, but in my pocket.

We might appreciate or worry about the growth of data, and it’s implications, or we may get excited and embrace it. Either way, big data is coming, and it continues to come to many organizations. While most of us aren’t pushing 10TB+ databases, some of us are, and few of us think in MB anymore. Makes you think that perhaps the default settings in SQL Server for MB in some cases are silly. Surely a MB is a like a penny (or pence in the UK), take one, leave one, but they don’t really count. Not until there are hundreds of them, and even then, maybe only a thousand is worth much mental effort.

I do agree that the big win with the Internet, and with many pieces of software, isn’t the platform, but the ways in which people take advantage of the platform. I think that the creativity of developers, taking advantage of incredible computing on mobile, is what has created an amazing revolution. However, it’s not really just the creative software, but the understanding and use of data at scale that has really enabled software to change the world. Access to lots of data, whether this is people wanting car rides, sharing their thoughts and images, or just the bits that make up the music of the world are the ways in which software can become incredibly popular. Also, this is how things might get incredibly dangerous.

I do think that AI has the chance to become an inflection point in computing, helping to create more applications that will work with humans in new ways that harness our knowledge, ethics, and vision with the computing power that continues to grow in incredible ways.

The keynote is an interesting watch. It’s about 45 minutes, but if you want to dream a bit, it’s worth your time.

Steve Jones

Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher or iTunes.

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Daily Coping 27 Jul 2020

Posted on July 27, 2020 by way0utwest

I’ve 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.

Today’s tip is to make a list of three things that you can feel hopeful about.

1. Success against COVID

There are a number of drug trials showing some early success, but more importantly, there are a number of trials. We, as a world species, are trying lots of things. Hopefully something works and we share.

2. We can exercise with masks

Colorado implemented a mask order just after a volleyball practice a couple weeks ago. My gym for working out, and the one for coaching, both adhered to this. I held a practice after this, and the sixteen 13/14 year old girls wore their masks without complaint. They got pulled down once in awhile, but for the most part they wore them.

At the same time, I see lots, most people, in my workout gym wearing masks while working out. I tried it while lifting, and while not something I like, it’s not that bad.

3. My daughter will hang out longer

My daughter is a starting volleyball player in college. Last year, other than a couple matches missed for injury, she played every point as a freshman. It was quite exciting, traveling to watch her play live in New York, as well as streaming games from London, Sydney, and around the US. I was really looking forward to that again.

However, her conference suspended fall sports. They might move to spring, but for now, no sports. As a result, she is thinking that she doesn’t want to go back for the fall. It’s a lot of money, and if she can’t hang out with friends and is watching a screen, she would rather stay here, save some money, which might get her another season of play, and work for my wife.

I like having her around.

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The Ultimate Home Office

Posted on July 25, 2020 by way0utwest

When the pandemic hit, we were fairly well prepared at Redgate. We’ve had lots of experience connecting offices, we have an amazing IT staff that has built a great VPN setup, lots of SSO authentication, and a tremendous KB of info.

However, many of our staff didn’t have a dedicated space in their residence. Even those that did often had to share with partners, children, and others. That was a challenge. I know because we created a Slack channel for people to share their work space pictures. I saw some creative solutions, and I also sympathized with way some people have had to work during the last few months.

I’m lucky that I’ve been working from home a long time and have made some changes over the years to build a better home office. I’ve upgraded PCs, added some lights, gotten a standing desk, etc. in that time. The pandemic got me to finally upgrade to a Secret Lab chair and adding a ring light for video calls. I also rearranged the office slightly after refinishing our floors.

After seeing Troy Hunt’s post this week on his ultimate home office, I’m a little jealous. Not that I want to spend that much time and money on my office, or do all the IoT and other configuration, I am still interested as a geek in what he did. It’s quite a write-up, and if you go through it, those of you that are hardware geeks will probably enjoy it and then frown at your setup. You might also get jealous if you read about some of the systems Glenn Berry has built, Brent Ozar’s home office, or even the studio that Adam Saxton has built.

For now, I’m pretty happy with my home office, though I still have a few minor things to work on. A little more cable management, perhaps a few small storage boxes/places for my desk, and certainly a little sweeping and mopping. That last one is something that needs to be done on a more regular basis, at least while the pandemic is stuff affecting me.

Steve Jones

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