Voice of the DBA

Tag: Microsoft

  • Visual Studio Subscriptions

    Many of us that work with SQL Server do so exclusively through SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS). I find so many people really do the majority of their jobs with SSMS, Outlook, and a web browser. Even back in 2003 when I was a full time DBA, I probably spent the majority of my time in those three applications.
    However I also see more and more people using Visual Studio and other tools to accomplish their jobs. The growth of new tools, like Powershell, the expansion of our work into BI areas, and more mean that more and more people are using tools besides SSMS to work with SQL Server data.
    This past week there was an announcement that MSDN subscriptions were changing. At most of my jobs, I’ve had an MSDN subscription available to me. In fact, some of you might remember the large binders of CDs (and later DVDs) that arrived on a regular basis and contained copies of all Microsoft software. However many of you out there haven’t had MSDN available to you, or you’ve struggled to justify the yearly $1000+ cost, but you do want to work on your careers and practice with Microsoft software.
    At first I saw the yearly cost of MSDN at $799, which is a pretty large investment. However as I looked to the side, I saw a monthly subscription, no large commitment, available for $45. That’s not an extremely low cost for much of the world, but it’s very reasonable in the US. It’s also a great way to build a setup that allows you to work with a variety of Microsoft technologies at an affordable cost. What’s more, you can stop paying at any time. Or start again at any time.
    I know that it can be a struggle to invest in your own career, probably more difficult to find time than money. However this is a good way to get access to the various development and server tools for a period of time if you want to tackle a project or force yourself to learn a new skill.
    I’m glad that Microsoft has moved to a subscription model for MSDN. I expect to see this subscription growing as small companies use a small investment that scales linearly with new hires to provide their employees with tools. I can only hope that many other vendors adopt this same model and allow us to rent our tools, and upgrade, for a very reasonable cost. I just hope they all let us backup and save our settings in case we interrupt our subscription for a period of time.
    Steve Jones

  • Microsoft Exercise

    Have we got a deal for you! Microsoft is concerned about the health of your company and is doing something about it.

    There’s a trend in modern society of obesity, complacency, and general laziness. Not only does is this bad for society in general, but it also affects your health. So we have a new solution for you, designed specifically to combat this degenerative lifestyle in an easy way.

    The Upgrade Treadmill!

    Designed by the engineers up in Redmond, this highly engineered device ensures that you won’t sit around getting stagnant on those junky-technologies and deep-fried solutions. Instead we’ve built a system of carefully selected products released on a regular cycle that ensures you’ll be running for the rest of your career.

    And it’s easy to get started. Just call 1-800-SHARE-PRICE and enroll now in our assurance program. With a short lifetime and quick expiration, our automated reminders to your boss will ensure that you never slack off and slow down your pace of upgrades.

    It’s all in fun, but there’s some seriousness here. I originally wrote this awhile back when it seemed Microsoft was pressing for upgrades to SQL Server 2008 R2 after a relatively short development cycle post SQL Server 2008. However the piece got lost in the shuffle. I found it recently and was reminded of the sentiment when I saw a post to upgrade away from SQL Server 2005 with support ending.

    There are good reasons to upgrade; just be sure the reasons are valid for your instance and environment.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 1.8MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and LibSyn.

  • Microsoft and R

    Microsoft purchased Revolution Analytics recently, a commercial company that works with the R programming language. This seems to be a decision to improve the analytics and analysis offerings from Microsoft. I’ve heard this will be incorporated into their Machine Learning offering, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see some basic R support in SQL Server at some point. If you’re not familiar with R, we’ve got a basic piece at SQLServerCentral on it.

    Microsoft has made lots of acquisitions before, and while there’s some question of whether Microsoft can make R easy to use, I think they can. Years ago, Microsoft bought Proclarity, a company that had some BI type products. Did they succeed with that acquisition? I think they did. A number of the technologies likely made their way into PowerPivot and Power View even though the Proclarity products have somewhat disappeared, being incorporated into other products.

    The R language and environment is complex, and I’m not sure how many database developers or DBAs want to become experts. However I do think that it could be possible to make the language easier, perhaps by building functions into SQL Server that help with the data analysis and computational features, and adding extensions in ADO.NET or other client libraries that might support easier rendering of visualizations.

    We have lots of tools to help here already, with PowerPivot and other related Excel add-ins, and I suspect that any offerings here will overlap with those products, but allow Microsoft to woo an even wider audience of data professionals.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 1.9MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and LibSyn.

  • What’s Coming True?

    It’s the start of the new year, and the first day of work for many of us. As I start to work this year, I see that much of my work is based on that planning we did at the end of last year. We made predictions for our business, set goals, and today begin to execute on things. However, we are assuming our predictions are somewhat accurate in order to achieve success. What if our predictions aren’t correct?

    There’s no shortage of prognosticators out there, and I found a number of predictions about IT, the Cloud, and Microsoft. I have no idea if any of these will actually come true, but I wanted to ask you this week:

    Which of these predictions will come true in 2015?

    • Increased automation and less staff
    • more BYOD acceptance and support
    • More telecommuting
    • containerization of software in the cloud (or the data center)
    • More hybrid applications using the cloud
    • IoT growth – more sensors, more data for you
    • Windows 10 will be a hit
    • SQL Server 2015 will come out
    • Windows Phone will become competitive
    • You’ll get hacked at your company.
    • You will encrypt your databases?

    The IT trends listed are fairly general, and all of them are really underway now, so I’m not sure there’s much of a prediction there. For you individually, will you see more automation and less people? More BI and cloud usage? Any of the Microsoft predictions likely to come true? Do any these apply to your environment?

    This isn’t an exhaustive list, and certainly there’s lots of people expecting 3D printing and more mobile technologies to emerge. If you think any of these will, or won’t, definitely come true, take a vote and we’ll rerun this thread at the end of the year. If you have other predictions, let us know as well.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 2.1MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and LibSyn.