Getting started as a data professional is an incredibly daunting task. If you’re not concerned that you’re going to mess stuff up and cause a system to crash and burn, maybe you’re in the wrong job. The amount of information you have to learn is insanely huge, coupled with the fact that you are straddling application development, system administration and business needs, multiplied by the factor that all the apps, all the code and the very server structure on which you’re building everything is constantly changing. Concerned now? Good. Stay that way. The one piece of advice I want to offer you is that very state of concern. You are in a wonderful and horrifying position. If you’re working in the database administration space, you’re tasked with protecting the data…
Red Gate visited three cities this year with our SQL in the City event; Pasadena, Atlanta and Charlotte. I just wanted to give you a quick assessment of how the events went from my point of view. Overall, each and every one of these events was awesome. I can safely say that because each and every one of these events provided something special, the opportunity to network with our peers and with the developers and project managers at Red Gate (who are also our peers, but not usually available to us). I both took part in the networking and stood back and watched it happen. I love seeing a bunch of data pro's sitting (or standing) in a circle exchanging war stories, ideas, questions, thoughts or suggestions. It means you…
Most everyone I know works with environments that are carefully controlled and structured. All changes go through rigorous testing and full documentation. Absolutely nothing happens in a production environment that hasn't been thought through, discussed, planned for and written down. But, there are a few, a very few, who work in a slightly different kind of environment that they refer to as "the real world." In this "real world" changes to a production environment can happen without approval, planning or testing. Scary, right? There's good news for these poor benighted souls. Red Gate is testing out a new piece of software called SQL Lighthouse. It's meant to monitor your systems for changes so that you know what has happened and when in case you don't have a good source control…
I read this fascinating blog post called "Don't Be a Gatekeeper" by Julie Zhuo. Please read that first. It really resonated for me in a lot of ways. Everything she said is 100% applicable to our jobs as data professionals. Work to make things more robust. Create processes and structures and an environment where you don't have to be the hero all day every day. Yes, absolutely. But... ah, there's this nagging little voice at the back of my head. Let's ignore it for a moment. Are you a gatekeeper for your developers? Why? Get out of their way. Listen to what Ms. Zhuo has to say. Your development team doesn't need you squatting on their servers preventing them from moving as fast as they can. In fact, they need…
Yeah, Azure. How we program, what we program and where we program is changing. All the time. This excellent article lays out a bunch of the trends that are going on within software these days. And one of the single biggest parts of this trend is the fact that more and more things are online. In the cloud, if you insist. Clearly, despite unusual (and I would argue, unreasoning) resistance from my fellow DBAs, Azure is absolutely becoming "a thing." If you're like me, as you sit around carefully weaving your buggy whips, you're also keeping an eye on the road, just in case you start to see more automobiles than horses. Maybe I'm located in a bad spot, but it's starting to look like a sixteen lane mega-highway outside…
It was pointed out to me that since PASS is such a huge networking event, any employer would be crazy to send a good employee to the event. They'll just come back and hand in their two weeks notice. You know, that's entirely possible. But, let's not confuse networking with job hunting. Funny enough, while I did get my latest job while at the PASS Summit, it wasn't through the personal network that I had built up over the years of going to, and speaking at, the Summit. I use that network as an extensive knowledge base. If I have a question about Availability Groups, I have at least three different people I can reach out to. If I get stuck on some internals question, I have other individuals I…
Learning new things can be daunting. First, you have to come up with the spare time. Then you have track down resources. For computers, computing and programming, this is both extremely easy and extremely difficult. That difficulty is especially true when it comes to gathering resources for learning things that, while you learn, are potentially going to cost you money. It's a difficult decision to make to risk cash on exploring a new technology. Here's the good news, for several reasons, you don't need to sweat this to get going with Windows Azure SQL Database (WASD). A couple of years ago Jamie Thompson (b|t) set up an account on Azure, all on his own, that allowed people to connect up to it and play with a copy of the AdventureWorks…
I've been at home through the whole month of August, restingworking hard, but it's time to get on the road again. First up, it's off to San Diego for two events. On Friday, September 20th, Red Gate (my Lord and Master) is hosting a free afternoon session of training. Steve Jones (b|t) and I will be walking through several sessions oriented towards the DBA and the skill sets they need to get things done. It's a free event, training done the Red Gate way, so register here, get some free training, a little networking and finish up with a frothy beverage. Then it's off to SQL Saturday San Diego the next day, Saturday, September 21st. As I write this, they haven't posted the schedule, so I'm not sure what session I'll be doing,…
We are bringing Red Gate, through the free SQL in the City event, to the United States again this year. This event has been hosted in London multiple times, Los Angeles, New York, Austin, San Francisco, Chicago and Boston. It's a fun day of training, presentations, and networking, all done the Red Gate way. I'm excited as can be to get to take part in this again. Best of all, we're bringing it to a whole slew of new cities; Atlanta, Pasadena and Charlotte. So if you've missed it in the past because it was too far away, hopefully we'll be closer to you this time and you can make it. We almost always completely fill these events, so please, register early. We'll be talking about all sorts of topics;…
Psssttt! Developers. Man, have I got something good for you. Are your DBAs slowing down your development processes? Are they keeping you from flying down the track? Bypass them. Let's assume you're working in the Microsoft stack. Let's further assume you have an MSDN license. Guess what? That gives you access to Azure... hang on, come here. You want to hear this. Let me tell you a quick story. See, I'm not a developer (not anymore). I'm a DBA. Wait, wait, wait. I'm on your side. It's cool. I'm just like you guys, but in a different direction. See, I had a database designed and already up as a Windows Azure SQL Database. I'm working with a number of Boy Scouts on their Eagle projects. They're going around to all…