Voice of the DBA

Tag: career

  • Learning Goals–April Update

    Here is the update: I did better.

    Extended Events

    I did a little more multi-tasking this month, ensuring that if I rode the stationary bike for exercise, I had my tablet and watched some Pluralsight or read some content.

    Here I learned a few things:

    Predicates

    These short circuit, and this means that we want to write our predicates to end early if possible. We also want to write our predicates to look at local data before global data so that we can stop event code as early as possible.

    There is also a 3000 byte limit, so be careful with structuring the event predicate statement.

    I also found that u_tables.sql lets me rebuilt the default sessions for an instance. It’s in the install folder. That’s handy as there are times that I’ve removed the default sessions or changed them and I’d like to get back to the beginning.

    Event Sessions

    The structure for event sessions is like DDL for other objects. These are always created with events, but we can remove all events. I’m not sure why you want the placeholder, but it’s an interesting anomaly. I suspect that this is a hole in the DDL parser.

    I also learned you can drop sessions without stopping them. Convenient? Sure. However, this means that I could make a mistake and not get a question about dropping a session that I, or someone else, is using.

    Changing event or target configuration means dropping and adding back the item. That’s good to know. No way to alter an event predicate.

    Python

    I made it a point to do some coding every week, and work on Python. I did some fundamentals, ensuring I understood how modules work and are imported. I spent some time on variables and mutable/immutable items. I wanted to be sure I understood how these worked compared to other variables. It’s good to know that some of the assignments don’t create a new variable, but merely set a pointed to the existing item.

    I set up a Jupyter notebook in Azure, which was interesting. I need to use this more, and perhaps do some coding here on the Advent of Code or other projects. I solved a couple more days of puzzles, which was fun. These are challenging, and it took a little time to work through items.

    I didn’t do this every week, as I had some travel this month, but I did make an effort to work in python a bit more.

  • In Depth Learning at the PASS Summit

    This past week the pre-conference sessions for the 2018 PASS Summit were released. There’s a good list of topics and speakers, returning and new presenters, that you can choose from. If you’re planning on attending the Summit, I would review the options and if any of these are relevant to your position, I’d bundle the cost of a session into your request for Summit funding. I’ve seen plenty of people ask for the registration fee without a pre-con and then try to negotiate additional funds later. Do yourself a favor and ask for everything at once.

    Are these sessions worth the time and money? Most are, and a single day packed with information is often easier to digest than a full week. However, you’ll still have days of random learning slots during the regular conference, so plan on spending a day learning and then shifting into a different mode for the rest of the conference. There is a lot of information presented in an all day session, and you’re likely to miss some of it. Most presenters provide a good set of materials to go with the class, but you should plan on taking lots of notes and then spending a few hours here and there across the next month reviewing and practicing what you’ve learned.

    I’ve often found that a pre-conference session is the best way for me to dive deep into a topic that I haven’t had the time to investigate on my own. Time is a precious resource and finding time in my busy work and family life is hard, especially for a full week class. I’d still like to get to a week long sqlSkills class, but I can’t seem to find the time. Maybe after next year when I have no more children at home and fewer commitments.

    I used to take a computer to classes, but the last few years I’ve moved back to paper and pen. I find that sketching out notes by hand is quicker and easier, I ignore typos, and somehow the act of writing cements things in my mind more. I’d recommend you try both, though certainly having your phone around to take a picture of something is incredibly handy at times. I’ve tried OneNote and a digital pen on a laptop, but again, it’s not as quick or smooth as pen on paper. The one thing I did like is that I could add pictures to my notes.

    A conference is a large investment, whether you make it or your employer does. Adding in a day of training on a topic is often a relatively small incremental increase. It’s worth the time and cost, if you’re already going to be gone for multiple days. I’m not sure if I’ll get to a pre-con at the Summit this year, but I’m hoping to get a day of watching and learning on a single topic in at one of the events I attend this year.

    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.

  • Is the DBA Title Dying?

    Not is the DBA joib dying, though we could argue about that as well. Instead, I’m asking if the title of Database Administrator is going away. Are there going to be people that really want to send out resumes and apply to be Database Administrators beyond the next few years? As I look at my resume, I wonder if that’s a job or title I want to keep around.

    Think about that for a few minutes. We’re in the age of complex systems with cloud platforms, automated backup software, PowerShell and other scripting, Chef, Puppet, containers, self-service clones, automatic indexing, query store plan fixing, and more monitoring options than you would want to spend time evaluating. We have plenty of tools to assist, or takeover, much of the daily administration of database platforms. Even security can be mostly outsourced to AD, AAD, other directory services. While there is some level of what we might consider administration, is that the core of many people’s jobs? Will it still be in five years?

    I read a few of the posts from T-SQL Tuesday #100, including Adam Machanic and Brent Ozar. They both think the DBA is dying, and I tend to agree. I know that inertia slows change in many large organizations, and I’d bet there will be a delay just because of HR. After all, if you want to be a data reliability engineer or data professional, most organizations don’t list that job title and would have no idea how to hire you. Even if they loved your resume, they’d end up hiring you as a DBA or developer (developer III maybe) just because they like those nicely labeled buckets for the HR systems. They might not even know how to pay someone in some new role.

    However, the more I talk with people, the less they seem to be doing administration. They still tune queries, but often they’re helping do more database development or even database architecture than administration. They may to more reporting or ETL work, which can easily fall under development as well. Security is still a part of their jobs, but that doesn’t seem to change as often as it used to. Many people have moved to database roles and AD integration for authentication. Then security becomes more of a set-it-and-let-someone-else-manage-it. I even see Slack bots or other tools that let people self-service requests, and others quickly (or automatically) approve them.

    We still do some work, as things like HA/DR still aren’t quite a smooth as they could be, but that’s changing. Cloud services, and the evolving Azure Stack may mean that more and more of our work will be done by templates and patterns. We may have to create the template, but that feels more like architecture and less like basic administration. I expect at some point we’ll just link a grid of machines, on premises or in the cloud, and let people self-service their requests for systems. The “template” will let a service deploy HA databases across the machines as it sees fit, providing an address to connect to, implementing monitoring, and even solving many simple problems without human intervention. I expect that security and auditing features and capabilities will also grow rapidly, becoming more automated, or at least automatic, and request less administration.

    I used to joke I was a data janitor in many jobs. Just dealing with whatever situations people couldn’t, or wouldn’t, bother working on with databases. I often cleaned up messes made by developers that weren’t sure how to build a database that scaled beyond “their machine”. These days I think I’m no less of a data janitor, but I call us data professionals. It’s a better catch-all term, and certainly sounds more appropriate. We do our best to ensure the safety, accuracy, and availability of data in whatever way works best in our environment. We’ll run your T-SQL, R, python, machine learning, SSIS, SSRS, or whatever code for you, and audit the actions.

    I think that as we do that, we’ll do more development, cleansing, and analysis than actual administration.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 5.2MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and Libsyn.

  • Learning is Hard–March Goals Update

    This is the third update for my goals for 2018. This is about 3 weeks after the last update, and it’s too soon. Not in time, but because I haven’t done a great job.

    This was a busy month. March and April are prime volleyball season, so I’ve had some longer weekends and time off to coach and watch my daughter play. Add to that some ski time and I haven’t had a lot of work or free time. As a result, my days at work are busy with catching up and ensuring I’m getting things done for work.

    Learning has suffered, and like the Oct/Nov conference season, learning is suffering here.

    My two appointments, Tues afternoon just after work and Friday afternoon, have been busy with other events, or with the need to do more work. As a result, not enough learning. Here’s an update in my two areas.

    Extended Events

    Very little here. This is Tuesday learning, and I’ve gotten myself jammed up for time every week. I’m considering moving this to another day, but not sure which one is better. I’m tempting to try and get through ski season and see if Tues then lightens a bit at work.

    I did watch more of Jonathan Kehayias’ Pluralsight course while on the bike, but not practical work.

    Python

    I spent a couple of hours working through some basics on lists and dictionaries. I realized that I haven’t been doing this enough and I needed a refresher. That was good, and it helped me build a few Questions of the Day, as well as get some practice.

    The one upside is that I was struggling with a puzzle in T-SQL and decided to try Python. I solved it in about 10 minutes, and my solution worked the first time. I was proud of that, and spent another 10-15 minutes solving another problem. So, I know a few things.

    No real formal learning, but I feel like I should race through a Pluralsight course and try to be sure I have a good grounding. Plans for next month as I’m traveling a bit.

    Too Busy

    A few things with family and then volleyball affected me more than I thought, but that’s part of a busy life and it challenges my focus on learning. I’m also letting myself get distracted with the shiny things, reading a bit on various other technologies, which is part of my job. However, CosmosDB and other items aren’t what I planned for this year.

    I’m putting pressure on myself to get through some XE and Python learning and then move into other areas. We’ll see if I can pick things up next month.