Voice of the DBA

Tag: career

  • Learning some DAX

    I’ve not done much BI work in my career, other than simple aggregates in reports. I’ve wanted to tackle projects, but I’ve rarely had a chance to spend time in this area at work.

    Recently I had a bit of time and decided to look at some Power BI courses.  At Pluralsight, when searching Power BI, I got a learning path that showed a number of courses from different authors. In the intermediate track, the first course was from Eugene Meidinger.

    2019-12-09 13_40_32-Microsoft Power BI for Analysts Path _ Pluralsight

    I met Eugene last year at SQL Saturday Pittsburgh and decided to give his course on Getting Started with DAX Formulas in Power BI, Power Pivot, and SSAS. Not quite what I wanted, but since I was curious about DAX, I decided to give it a try.

    Understanding DAX

    The intro is interesting. Eugene makes a good case for why DAX is important in the Microsoft stack. I tend to agree as I see this being incorporated into many products, including Excel. I’ve felt somewhat out of touch in that I haven’t known much about it and how it works. Even when I flip through our Stairway series, I’m somewhat skimming and haven’t really understood what it means.

    I think Eugene does a good job of trying to explain DAX as different than, but similar to Excel. Thinking of this as an expression language, rather than a query language, isn’t something I’ve considered. Maybe I’ve heard this, but it didn’t stick.

    He also lets me know this isn’t easy, which is what I’ve thought. I’ve seen Bill Pearson and Reza Rad talk some DAX, and it wasn’t quite clear to me. It felt clear when they were speaking, but not later. I’m hoping Gene teaches me a bit more in my office rather than in a 1 hour session.

    Going Through the Overview

    I went through the first few modules, which give you an overview and basic understanding. Eugene tries to explain the differences between DAX and SQL, which is a good way to approach the problem. Many of us are familiar with SQL, so this is helpful.

    The third module starts to get into data governance and where you use DAX with your data. This is interesting, and it’s a good look at what type of organization you deal with for data. How is your data managed, which is something that most companies don’t really have a good, or consistent, data governance strategy.

    One good thing is that Eugene explains  the different places where DAX is supported for queries. That’s good since I’ve been thinking of DAX as the Power BI language, but it’s not. It can be used in Excel with PowerPivot.

    The fourth module is the one where we start to understand column storage and the value this gives us. Still no DAX, but it’s a good module for analysts and relation people.

    In getting through 4 modules, no real technical stuff that’s helped me, but it’s given me a little better baseline.

  • The WFH Challenges

    The daily protocol for some of the world is changing rapidly these days. The COVID-19 pandemic is affecting many people. Many of us working in tech are blessed that we have the ability to work remotely, and lots of companies have started to allow working from home (WFH) to rapidly grow in the last month. I worry about those that don’t have the option, and I hope they find ways to cope.

    I’ve been working from home for 17 years. My wife did it for large tech companies for almost 20 years. It’s not hard, but it’s not simple. Kendra gave us three tips last week, and I’m adding a few more since I ran across a piece in the NYT from a writer that’s been forced to work at home more due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It notes that working at home isn’t a panacea, and there are creativity losses from separation. I tend to agree, which is why I normally go to the Redgate offices a few times a year. The facetime is important.

    I will say that the switch to working from home is an adjustment. Alice Goldfuss has a long post on this, and there are a few thoughts from Andrew Pruski on his first two years. If you’re interested, Eugene Meidinger also talks a bit about working for himself at home, and the loneliness of the first three months. Mala also has some resources that might prove helpful.

    If I think back, I remember a lot of the challenges of being at home and not going to an office. I spent over a decade going to an office and starting to work at home was hard. My wife had been doing it for 7 or 8 years at that point and sharing an office was hard. She was always on the phone, which was louder than the open office plan I’d had at JD Edwards. Or she was gone, and I was lonely. I’d go for walks with the dog or hit the gym most days. I learned that I had a kitchen, but I was less prepared for lunch because I didn’t have to make it and take it anywhere.

    At one point I took a part time consulting gig to get out of the house. That gave me more purpose and satisfaction, but it meant my days were more busy and I struggled to separate work from home. I still struggle slightly with this, but I have learned to balance life out. If I need a break on a Tuesday, that’s fine. If I need to work on a Saturday to catch up, that’s fine. Sometimes I actively make that trade, especially during ski season.

    Working from home is a change, and it’s disruptive. I mostly work on solo projects, but I do need to collaborate and find the Slack, Teams, and video calls are helpful. I do have a separate office, and I’ve had to explain to family that working is working, and they should not just interrupt me at any time. I have to learn to take breaks, and I have to learn to build a routine. You will too, and it’s something I’d recommend. Take advice from others and try something for a week. See how it works for you, remembering you have to build some habits and try them out. Don’t abandon something immediately, and don’t think that the way you start working this week is something you’re stuck with forever.

    Stay safe during this time and work to keep yourself mentally health until the world gets back to normal activity.

    Steve Jones

    Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher or iTunes.

  • Updating Certifications

    When I first started my career, certifications were hot. I worked on the Netware CNE and Microsoft MCSE certs. Nearly 30 years ago these certifications were controversial as plenty of awardees weren’t competent at their jobs in the real world. However, marketing worked and employers wanted these certs, so they mattered.

    Over the years I’ve worked on books for a few certifications and taken a number of tests. Partially as research and partially to test myself. I’ve personally found the certifications to be helpful because they focus my efforts in learning about a technology. I’ve found them to be maddening at times because the questions haven’t always felt very applicable to the world.

    That being said, since I write many of the daily QotD questions, and regularly get complaints on my work, I appreciate how hard it is to write good questions that relate to the real world.

    In any case, I never pursued the MCSA, MCDBA, or MCSD, and I’m somewhat glad I didn’t decide to start. Microsoft is retiring these broad, general certs as of June 30, 2020. If you are working on one of these, you have until then to pass exams. After that, you can’t earn one of these certs.

    Microsoft isn’t abandoning certs, but moving to role based certs. These should be more granular in nature, focusing on the things you might do for a job. Of course, some of these are retiring on Apr 2, so it’s a bit of a mess right now.

    The part that many people might not like about this is that these certs are all Azure based. I think that upsets some people, especially those that only deal with SQL Server on-premises. I think that’s fair, though I do think that most of the skills relate to both, after all, they do have a common code base. Azure doesn’t always mean PaaS, and the IaaS offerings with SQL Server are going to be what you get when you install the software on your own hardware.

    I’m not going to advocate for or against certifications. Like any training or educational achievement, a lot of the value is based on what effort you expended and how you present your work. If you want to earn an older cert, you need to hurry. If you’re looking for a new one that helps you stand out from others, you have some options. If you’re interested in pursuing a certification, let us know today.

    Steve Jones

    Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher or iTunes.

  • Setting 2020 Learning Goals

    I deliberately didn’t set any goals at the start of 2020 since I was taking six weeks off for a sabbatical. That’s done, and it’s time to look forward.

    I know I have a few things that will be important for work. Oracle, PostgreSQL, and MySQL will be on the list as we expand and try to sell more database development tools. We’re also working hard on improving SQL Monitor, so finding a way to improve me query tuning, analysis, and monitoring skills will exist.

    The goals I want to set here will be more personal goals that may relate to my career, but they’ll not necessarily be things I do at work. I’ll carve out some time elsewhere to get through these.

    Reading

    I like reading, and do a lot of us to escape and relax. I completed around 120 books last year, but almost all were fictional or non-technology books. I had hoped to get through 6 tech books, but that didn’t work.

    This year I’m going to scale back and tackle this in two ways. First, I want to get through at least 3 tech books that relate to specific coding or other skills. I’ve still got a couple from last year, including a Power BI one, so that’s one goal.

    The other one will be 2 career related tech books. I started Making Work Visible, and I need to finish that, along with another one.

    Goal:

    • 3 technical books
    • 2 non-tech, related books

    Projects

    I do a lot of demo stuff and build lots of PoC type things, but I need a couple projects. Specifically, I want to get projects done that will help at work, but will be useful in some way to me, or perhaps even others. With that in mind, and dovetailing slightly with those items above, I want to tackle these three projects and get them in a somewhat useable state:

    • A Power BI report that updates from a database
    • A mobile app reading data from somewhere
    • A website that showcases changes and data from a database.

    Not big projects, but getting something organized and relearning some tech about reporting and coding is important to me. I have a few rough ideas for which topics to use for these, but I want to try some basic PoC and see how things go.

    Checking In

    I think I need to check in monthly with these goals and start to see how I’m making progress. I’ll set reminders weekly to spend time here and then monthly to update some stats on where I am.

    I think this feels slightly ambitious, but we’ll see how 2020 goes. Hopefully better than 2019.