Voice of the DBA

Tag: career

  • Get-DbaPowerShell

    When I first saw PowerShell, at TechEd 2006 (ish) and I was enamored. This was a much better environment than VBScript for working in a shell. Then I realized I needed -eq, -gt, etc. and was less excited. These language elements felt like a step back. Then I tried to build a restore script for SQL Server databases early on and was much less excited.

    Across the years, I’ve played with various tasks in PoSh as opposed to T-SQL or simple command scripts in various languages, and I find myself going back and forth. PoSh is very useful in some ways, more cumbersome in others, and I still am not sure exactly how I feel about it as a go-to tool. I am coming around to use more PoSh because of the dbatools project, and I find myself considering PoSh instead of T-SQL, especially when I think I may want to work across instances and string together commands.

    I was quite excited recently by T-SQL Tuesday #94, hosted by Rob Sewell. The topic was PoSh, and quite a few people participated, as you can see from the Get-PostRoundup. There are some creative uses of PoSh, such as importing Excel data, administering SSRS, turning Azure VMs off, cleaning up orphaned files, and more. Personally, once you start to use Azure more, PoSh makes the portal seem cumbersome and slow, and I find that for recurring tasks, it’s a much better tool.

    Recently I saw the DBAfromtheCold write a short piece on why you should learn PoSh. It’s a good look at some of the tasks that are easy through PowerShell. Some of these could be done in T-SQL, some with other scripts, but PoSh certainly is a possibility and an easy way to manage some of the tasks you might need to do at scale.

    I don’t think PoSh is the best way to do everything. In fact, I often still lean on T-SQL for many admin things, especially if I already have a connection open in SSMS. However, as I learn more about PoSh and how to use it, I can make those judgment calls about when it’s a better fit. That knowledge helps me become a more capable and stronger data professional, because I have choices about how to work with systems, and I have some knowledge or basis for the decisions I make.

    I advocate continuing to learn throughout your career, and certainly including PoSh as a topic if you work on the Microsoft platforms.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 4.0MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and Libsyn.

  • The Flash DBA

    The job as a DBA is the job. That’s been my view for a long time, which is why I am always concerned about the staff when I interview. The people I work with make the job good or bad. I can always handle the job, which is often very similar in many organizations. I might do more tuning in one place, or more infrastructure management in another, write more reports than the last gig, but the skills and techniques are very similar in many positions.

    I have also found at some, maybe many, companies there isn’t always a full time need for a DBA, or architect, modeler, etc. Instead, there are periodic ongoing needs for those skills. At one position, I was negotiating a deal to only be employed 3 days a week, planning on spending the other two at another company consulting. I was about ready to implement my plan when the first company lost funding and went out of business. Since then, most companies haven’t entertained the idea, even when there wasn’t necessarily a full time need for a DBA position.

    I thought back to that job when I read this piece on flash organizations, where the idea is to bring people together for a project or (relatively) short period of time to do some work. I have seen similar project teams in larger organizations, but those teams are limited to the talent within the company. A Flash team would bring contractors together for a project, perhaps with employees. Certainly consultants or contractors are sometimes used today, but they often aren’t seen as part of the “team”, or at least, they aren’t treated that way. That disparate treatment often means that there aren’t necessarily shared goals or the same focus among everyone in the team.

    If you’d asked me to consider flash teams a decade ago, I wouldn’t have thought that we had the management maturity to accept outside help for many types of work. However, the advent of cloud services (and more adoption than I would have thought), along with the use of pull requests and agile development services have me wondering if this might not be the type of things we see more often, especially for software. I could even see this for specialized skills, such as data science and ML model training.

    I do think that this type of work is harder for data professionals to walk into, since intimate knowledge of the meaning of data fields and their relationships is important. Coming up to speed on the way a business uses data can be easy when you start,but there are often edge cases and the complex ways in which business people often use data takes more time. I would expect time spent as a flash data professional would be front loaded in trying to gain an understanding of the environment. However, perhaps that would mean that there would be better documentation for future projects. Maybe even an ER diagram or two that actually matched the database system.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 4.1MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and Libsyn.

  • Interviews: What is ACID?

    I once had a job interview with a large group of employees at a company. They were arranged around a table, with me at one end. The interview was a round robin affair, with someone asking me a question and me answering. They would take turns, going around the table for a couple hours. Not the easiest or hardest interview I’ve had, but one of the more interesting.

    The first question from the gentleman to my left was, “What does ACID mean?”. My answer: “Isolated, Consistent, …”

    I don’t have a problem taking a few seconds to think, but I have that internal clock, much like an American football NFL quarterback. Mine is not the 5 second one many QBs have, but I know that after about 20 seconds, people are wondering if I’ll answer at all. Or if I’m still focused on the interview. If I go 30 seconds, I might have blown the interview. What would you do here? Do you know the other terms? More importantly, can you answer at a level beyond the words of the acronym?

    My response after 10 seconds or so was to admit I couldn’t remember the word. I could google for the meaning, but I did know this applies to relational database transactions, intending to ensure that we always have a known state for our data. We know that each transaction must full complete or be completely undone. We can’t have the classic issue of depositing money in one account and failing to remove it from another. We also cannot have other transactions interfere with other’s work. This means a transaction on a piece of data must complete before the next transaction can modify it. We also must ensure that if the system were to crash, our database could not restart with data in an unknown state. Therefore, in SQL Server, we write to the log first, ensuring the transaction is complete before we can be sure the data changes are hardened. There are more details you could add to my answer, but this is a core foundational part of relational databases.

    I have never been asked this question in another interview, but I do think this is one of those core concepts that helps me understand and explain other parts of SQL Server, and even of how to build software. I think understanding this will help you answer other interview questions with more depth and knowledge. Hopefully, you’ll have a better answer than I did, with the actual words that make up the acronym.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 3.8MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and Libsyn.

  • The Library Job Hunt

    I was reminded of the ways I’ve looked for jobs by a post from the Job Headhunter about library time. Rather than looking for what jobs are available, the recommendation is to take a targeted approach of using the library as a place to focus your energies and find the job that you really want, or at least type of job you want.

    Far too many of us look for jobs when we need them, often feeling financial pressures to accept the first offer we get. The pace of hiring usually prevents us from considering multiple offers, as the timing of interviews may not align. We make decisions for expediency, more than any other reason.

    We also usually fall from job to job, perhaps accepting a position that doesn’t quite suit us, or keeps us in the same position when we’d rather move. Again, time and financial pressures can force bad decisions. There’s also the fact that despite the training and schooling many of us have gone through, we don’t usually think about other options in the hectic, day-to-day chaos of our lives.

    The Job Headhunter recommends spending time in the library researching and thinking about different jobs. Certainly you could do this from the comfort of your home with technology, but I agree with the premise. The library can help you focus without the distractions at home. You can spend time thinking about your life, your goals, your interests, your skills, and more. Come up with a plan that drives your career forward. Certainly your research might give you some unexpected answer, but likely this will help you focus on some intersection of your skills and interests.

    Life is short, and there are opportunities out there for you. Choose the ones you want, hone your skills, and actively pursue the employment that fits in your life. The work, the company, the location, whatever is most important to you.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 3.0MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and Libsyn.