Voice of the DBA

Tag: career2

  • Scripting

    One of the directions in which Red Gate Software is to build more tools and utilities that all of you can use for working in cloud environments. We aren’t ignoring the desktop tools like SQL Compare and Prompt (v6, yeah!) that you’ve come to appreciate and depend on, but we are investing in expanding these tools to work with a remote, services style architecture since there are plenty of companies looking at AWS, Azure, or other providers for a portion of their applications.

    I’ve been learning a bit more about the way cloud services work and one of the things that becomes important in an IaaS environment is scripting. The environment you get is a base install and if you need more software or processes to run when a new VM starts up, you need to script the various installations or configurations.

    There are some great scripting features for SQL Server, like Finebuild for installs and Powershell for most everything else. Scripting is a great way to accomplish tasks, but like most skills, it needs to be used in order to be efficient and practical for most tasks. I’ve struggled with this, and I’m sure many others feel the same way.

    However I am starting to think that Powershell might be the best investment in my future skills. The quicker I can write it and build scripts to accomplish tasks, the more I’ll be able to do over time as I build a library of commandlets and scripts. That’s if I remember to document them well so I can easily search for what I need.

  • Citizen Scientists

    The tremendous growth of computing power, especially in the form of mobile devices, means that more and more people can analyze data themselves, or have applications do it locally, reducing the need for large central systems to perform all the calculations. Indeed some of the value from Hadoop and other cluster computing systems comes from using lots of small, relatively powerful systems to do more work than one single computer could.
    However we can not only analyze, but also gather data. There is a rise in the citizen scientist, in which individuals can help scientists by gathering data and sharing it with others. This can reduce the costs of gathering data, but more importantly, gather much more, and varied, data than might otherwise be possible. There are a number of projects available if you’re an amateur scientist that wants to join in.
    Most of us are data professionals and might be interested in working with more data. Perhaps we ant a set for demo purposes, but perhaps we want to work on a project that interests us and could use our technical talents. Many of the projects out there make their data available, and you should consider using such a set if it strikes your fancy.
    More importantly, I would hope that more people would analyze the raw data and look to verify, or dispute, the conclusions of the project owners. As data professionals, we can help people learn how they can analyze and manipulate data better with the tools we have available.  With more transparency, we can have healthier debates on the causes, the effects, and even the potential future implications of how to build a better world in the future.
    Steve Jones

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  • Opportunities Abound

    There are so many opportunities for many of you to learn more about SQL Server.  It’s amazing to think how many more choices we have today than I did early in my career. When I moved to Denver, we had a user group that met somewhat sporadically, an MSDN lunch hour every month, the PASS Summit, and training classes from various vendors like New Horizons.

    That’s changed today and when I look at my schedule, it’s incredible to think how many of them I’m going to be a part of this fall. I’ve got a busy travel schedule the rest of the year, and I’ll only touch a small portion of the events that you could use to increase your SQL Server knowledge.

    There are quite a few conferences this year. DevConnections in a few weeks, the PASS Summit mid month, and SQL Intersection at the end of October. I’ll be speaking at the former and latter, skipping the middle one this year. There are two SQL Rallys, Nordic and Amsterdam in Europe. There are also lots of pre– and post-cons and other workshops sessions around the events. There are even amazing training classes from vendors like SQLskills and Brent Ozar Unlimited that will teach you a tremendous amount about SQL Server. I’m hoping to attend one of these sessions in the next year.

    If your boss won’t pay for a conference or class, there are plenty of free events as well. SQL Saturdays are everywhere, almost every weekend. I’ll be at San Diego, Denver, Charleston, Portland, and Washington DC this year, but there are plenty more. Many of them offer pre-cons, at low costs. You might consider covering the cost yourself and asking your boss to pay for the time off.

    My employer, Red Gate Software, is putting on some of their own events. We are doing seminars before some of the SQL Saturdays and I have SQL in the City events in Pasadena, Atlanta, and Charlotte this year.  These are free events, just register and come.

    If you aren’t close to any events, there are more and more online resources. SQLServerCentral should be your first stop, but there are videos, webinars, virtual chapter meetings, and great subscriptions from vendors. If you want to self-study, there are great books you can buy as well as online challenges to help you learn.

    There are all levels of costs, online, local, worldwide, etc. resources that you can use to learn more about SQL Server. I’d highly encourage you to make a plan and improve your SQL Server skills over the next year. I guarentee there’s something for every budget and situation.

    Steve Jones

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    Today’s 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.

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  • Job Worries over Automation

    There was a report recently where the NSA noted that they are reducing the number of system administrators by 90%. If the report is true, that would certainly worry many of the people in the technology industry. However I’m not sure that the quote given in the article means what it looks like at first.
    Much of the technology reports that we see aren’t completely true since many of the reporters aren’t that familiar with the details of how computer technology works. In this case, however, we have a quote: “What we’re in the process of doing – not fast enough – is reducing our system administrators by about 90 percent,” It might be hard to interpret this remark in any way other than the NSA is looking to reduce the number of people, but if you read further, the piece notes that the NSA is concerned about contractors, not necessarily FTEs. I suspect that any reduction in contractors employed by other companies will be made up by increased internal headcount.
    However even if the NSA can reduce the number of people needed to administer their systems, I’d suspect that means that they had too many people to begin with. The various reports of this story all talk about automation being used increasingly to handle the load of system work, but the idea that automation replaces people is a myth. Automation usually results in less growth of people, but rarely a reduction in staff.
    I’ve heard the concerns over automation replacing technology workers for decades (literally) and I’ve yet to see it happen. We have more technology workers than ever before, and no sign of there being less in the future. Your department might change, you might hire less, but there will be lots of jobs in technology for the foreseeable future. In other departments that might not be the case, but I bet you we’ll have system administrators, DBAs, and developers for a long, long time in most companies that have them today.
    Steve Jones

    Video and Audio versions

    Today’s 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.

    Follow Steve Jones on Twitter to find links and database related items and announcements.
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