Voice of the DBA

Tag: Friday Poll

  • Fun Data Analysis

    The first part of this article is very true: “… correlation doesn’t always equal causality.” It’s a fun look at statistics and there’s a short video from a news station that contains this other great quote: “… numbers can be tricky.”

    As data professionals, we are often tasked with helping business people understand the information hidden in data. We look to identify patterns and relationships between the data that our applications collect or our companies purchase. However it’s not as simple as it might appear.

    This week, I’m wondering if you have some fun stories, or perhaps some scary stories, on conclusions that you or others have reached with data.

    When has a correlation been mistaken for causation by you?

    I know that most people in business don’t have extensive statistics backgrounds, and I’ve often seen people fooled by finding simple or obvious patterns in data that didn’t necessarily match reality. I’ve seen plenty of money lost because of bad decisions made by incorrect data interpretations.

    I once worked in a restaurant where a new chef decided to use sales data from the previous year to predict how many meals would be served. Using a growth factor from sales over the previous year, he increased his purchasing as the summer season approached. A month into summer, we realized that we were wasting almost twice as much food as we had in the past. I had a similar story where purchasing managers used a straight average of the previous three months that left is woefully short on imported wood.

    Let us know this week if you’ve seen mistakes made from naive interpretations of statistics.

    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. 

  • The Decline of SQL Server

    For many years in my career, SQL Server was the runner up. Both Oracle and DB2 were in much wider use and more popular among all sizes of companies. Serious applications used one of those platforms, according to many technologists, the DBAs on those platforms made more money, and most companies were willing to pay for the software. That changed, and over the years I’ve seen SQL Server grow close to Oracle, while DB2 has declined (and MySQL has grown). Here’s the 2014 chart from Gartner, on of all places, the MySQL site.

    I see other charts and reports, showing various percentages, so it’s hard to be sure where things stand. Many of them agree that for total market share, it’s still Oracle and DB2 (mostly on larger hardware), but SQL Server rounds out the big 3. However is that the case for jobs and opportunities? I read a piece from Thomas Kejser that pointed out that the popularity of SQL Server may be declining (there’s also an update).

    I see lots of jobs posted, and so many companies using SQL Server. SQL Saturdays continue to have great attendance, so I wanted to ask you this week:

    Is SQL Server being used less, or are other platforms being implemented, in your experience?

    Are you seeing a trend away from new, or additional, SQL Servers in your organization? I haven’t heard of any large trends, though I certainly do know that some organizations are considering other relational platforms. I think that’s healthy and expected. The technology for managing transactions is well known, and I think that all three major platforms, as well as MySQL and PostgreSQL are maturing to the point that any of them can handle the load for most applications out there.

    I think it’s only natural that other platforms will be used to solve problems that they are well suited for. However just as I don’t think SQL Server will grow to dominate the RDBMS space, I don’t think that NoSQL platforms will dominate over RDBMSes in many applications.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

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

  • Is SQL Server Mature?

    When I asked recently what compelling reasons there are, or aren’t, for upgrading SQL Server, it seems cost was the issue for most people. I can understand that, especially as licensing for VMs has made it an expensive endeavor to upgrade their systems. Many, many companies have started to revisit their policies regarding upgrades and seriously evaluate the decision to undertake a version change. While I’m not sure if many companies are starting to look at keeping all instances of SQL Server for ten years, I know many are looking to keep their noncritical systems on the existing versions as long as possible.

    As I read through the posts on my piece, I found this great quote from one of the commenter: “I’m a great believer in “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” and so if a system is running acceptably for it’s purpose, I’ll leave it alone.” To a large extent, that’s how I’ve viewed systems. If things are working, it becomes hard to justify an upgrade. In fact, I had a client that was running a SQL Server v6.5 instance in 2005, a full ten years after that version was released. Why? Mostly because the database backed a card key system that worked. While the database wasn’t supported, neither was the card key system, and since an upgrade would have been close to $100,000, it wasn’t worth performing. We did upgrade to a virtual server to remove hardware dependencies, but otherwise left the system alone.

    That brings me to this week’s question, which is one that I’ve asked myself for years: Is SQL Server mature?

    If a version of SQL Server can handle the load placed on it, is there any good reason to upgrade. I suspect that for many applications, the base features of SQL Server are good enough. If these features have performed well for a number of versions, then why change? While I like the changes in T-SQL, especially error handling, I’m not sure those changes are worth paying tens of thousands of dollars for. I’m not sure the improvements are really justified for many applications, and I’m not sure many developers can even find the time to implement them.

    More and more I think that key to continued adoption and growth of SQL Server is licensing by scale, not edition, and not by feature. Just like Azure, let me pay for the cores and RAM I need, and let me easily grow that as needed.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

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

     

  • Failure

    Tim O’Reilly has written some great pieces over the years on many aspects of technology and change. I’ve followed him for years and I’ve enjoyed many of his thoughts and views on our industry. I think he’s thoughtful and truly envisions the amazing things that technology can do to change the world, mostly for the better. I think it’s worth randomly reading through (or listening to) some of his thoughts.

    He recently wrote a long piece on the failures he’s had in business with his company, O’Reilly Media. It’s an interesting tale that looks at process, at mis-communications, and business. I think about my career, looking back on past decisions, looking at the way in which companies I’ve been associated with are run, and at the way that others around me have worked. I realize that there are many failures to go with the successes in my life. The piece made me take a good, hard look at my past, drawing parallels to the ways in which leadership at O’Reilly has worked as well as how it has come up short.

    This week, Mr. O’Reilly’s look back led me to this question, which I don’t expect to get many responses from. However I do hope it makes you think, and examine where you are, how you got here, and perhaps where you’d like to go from here.

    How have you failed in your career?

    Maybe you should compare your own experiences to those of Mr. O’Reilly, and think about how you might manage your own business, the business of running your career, differently.

    Like many people, at times in my career I have bounced  from job to job, often taking a position that was available rather than deliberately thinking about my future and moving in that direction. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last ten years, it’s that I should think deliberately think about what I like and don’t at work. I should honestly state to myself what I want to do and what isn’t worth the pay. 

    I re-examine my career each year, and seriously consider alternatives. I’ve been lucky in that I work for an amazing company and have a great job. No other alternative has measured up against my job so far.

    However I also realize that I’ve had some failures before this success, and I hope not to repeat many of them in the future by learning from my past.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 2.6MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and LibSyn. 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.