Voice of the DBA

Tag: career2

  • Big Data Comes to Hiring

    I remember first seeing kiosks a few years back in some stores such as Best Buy, Target, Barnes and Nobles, etc. The devices had banners above them that invited people to apply for a job using the computerized system. This was just before my oldest son started applying for jobs, and shortly thereafter I found a few articles that stated quite a few of these large corporations were using the same company to manage the kiosks and pre-screen candidates. Not only were they considering the applications, but they were examining employment records, noting which candidates might have been terminated or left another job quickly. They were trying to use analytics to decide which applicants to interview.

    That entire process reminded me of the “black mark” on your record that I heard about as a kid. It was a reminder to not make too many mistakes, at least not serious ones, that might follow you forever. It appears now that it’s not just entry level jobs that are starting to use data and analysis for hiring decisions. It seems as though some companies are starting to evaluate candidates with different types of algorithms and applications for a wide range of positions. This piece from the Atlantic talks about the history of hiring and a few ways in which data is being gathered about workers and used to analyze their performance. Even more interesting the section about halfway down that talks about how they analyze developer’s work from afar.

    It’s expensive, time consuming, and stressful to hire people. We’ve proven in technology over and over that many of the hiring decisions made, aren’t made that well. We find talented people being underpaid and quick to leave, while other employees are overpaid and are happy to toil away in their positions for years. Neither situation is good for the employer, and often not good for the employee either. It’s less than motivating for any of us when we don’t find some challenge and enjoyment in our jobs.

    Ultimately I know more “people analytics” will be used in the hiring process by some companies, but I find that even with the data, there’s one thing that seems to matter more: personal referrals. Networking matters, and there is no shortage of companies that are placing lots of value on their employees’ networks. Some of them are even looking to conduct the majority of their hires through networking. So make sure you’re networking with others in technology. You never know when it will be the way you get your next job.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 2.8MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and Mevio . feed

    The Voice of the DBA podcast features music by Everyday Jones. No relation, but I stumbled on to them and really like the music. Support this great duo at www.everydayjones.com.

  • Powershell in a Month Day 14 – WMI

    This is part of my Powershell Challenge, to learn more about PowerShell (PoSh) using the Learn Windows Powershell 3 in a Month of Lunches book by Don Jones.

    Day 14 introduces us to Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI). Since many people might not be familiar with WMI, the chapter spends a little time trying to help you understand what WMI is.

    I know what it is, I hate it, and I agree, it’s a PIA. It’s a mess, it’s inconsistent, and I’m not surprised the Powershell barely integrates with it. As with the cmdlets, this shows that there are the WMI cmdlets and the newer CIM cmdlets. The old ones like

    Get-WMIObject

    are somewhat deprecated. They work, but no development is being done. Instead, we need to use

    Get-CIMInstance

    That makes sense to me and I understand it. With no legacy work, I don’t think I have any issue with using Get-CIMInstance, though I do hate the idea of querying the WMI spaces. They’re a mess and nothing is intuitive.

    gwmi -class win32_bios -computer localhost,JollyGreenGiant | format-table @(l=’Host’;e={$_.__SERVER}

    There’s more to the table, but that’s all I typed in to test. I did a few more queries, with this and Get-CIMInstance to practice, but most of this chapter is really just understanding how WMI is organized to look for things and then formatting the results. Easy enough to do, a little boring, but good practice with expressions.

    The lab was annoying, mostly because it’s asking you to figure out which WMI classes to query. I googled around for some, and found them, but mostly this is annoying. I can certainly see where it’s handy to understand how WMI queries work, but like most people, I prefer to avoid them.

    Short chapter, easy, and good practice formatting things.

  • The DBA is Dead

    I love seeing articles like this one: The Database Administrator is Dead. They make me laugh and look back at previous incarnations of the same thought. I think I should save the text of this article, stick it in an appointment with a reminder for 2 years from now, and then read it again.

    The first time I heard this was back in 2000. I was working in a small company and SQL Server 7.0 came out with a marketing push that a DBA wouldn’t be needed. The developers I worked with crowded around and asked if I was worried about my job. I’ll admit I was a little worried, even as I denied any concerns to my co-workers, but as I read about the changes and thought about my job, I realized it was all for naught.

    While much of our jobs can be automated, the specific details and implementation of any automation at any particular job will vary widely at different companies. Even at different times. The work that DBAs do is not going away, and someone needs to continue to provide some administration and management of databases.

    I will admit that I think there is less of a need for DBAs at many companies, at least if the DBAs are strictly managing security and backups. The amount of time these tasks take now has been dramatically reduced with new tools for managing systems, both within SQL Server and from third party vendors. If you have a job that just deals with basic administration, good for you, but I wouldn’t stop learning. Those talents might not be enough to get you a new job if you need one.

    I also think that today’s DBAs need to be able to handle the limited administration that might be needed on other platforms, including the cloud. We need to understand how we can work with, and speed up development, with SQL Server databases while helping to improve the quality of any database code that’s written. We need to learn about how we can get the most from the platform while integrating with a variety of technologies.

    The DBA isn’t dead, and I’ve created that appointment for 2 years down the road. It will be interesting to see how things have changed in that time.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 2.9MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and Mevio . feed

    The Voice of the DBA podast features music by Everyday Jones. No relation, but I stumbled on to them and really like the music. Support this great duo at www.everydayjones.com.

  • Powershell in a Month Day 13 – Remote Control

    This is part of my Powershell Challenge, to learn more about PowerShell (PoSh) using the Learn Windows Powershell 3 in a Month of Lunches book by Don Jones.

    Remoting. It sounds complex, and intimidating. It isn’t, and it’s powerful. It’s also essential, allowing you to access commands on remove machines.

    The chapter starts with the idea of remoting, and running commands elsewhere. We learn this comes from telnet and other remote type access, and is implemented as a web services protocol, WS-MAN. Incidently, this is how SSMS works. Your T-SQL is executed remotely on the server, not on your workstation. Lots of people don’t get that and get confused.

    This chapter presents a challenge. You need a domain for security to work correctly, or easily, with remoting. There are potential workarounds, but it’s an issue. I haven’t had a domain at home because of overhead and not wanting a domain controller set up. That means some setup work to build a couple virtual machines and create a domain.

    Ugh. Annoying, but it’s something I should do. I have wanted to rebuild a domain for some time, but haven’t bothered, but this is the excuse to do so. As such, I read the chapter, and started setting up the domain. That will take a few days, so I’ll continue on with the next chapter as I get a domain ready. More notes to come once that’s done.