Lobbying for Change

FromVoice of the DBA

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Lobbying for Change

FromVoice of the DBA

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Length:

3 minutes

Released:

Apr 8, 2014

Format:

Podcast episode

Description

The Connect system from Microsoft doesn't work that well, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't continue to press Microsoft for change.
Read the rest of "Lobbying for Change" at SQLServerCentral.

Released:

Apr 8, 2014

Format:

Podcast episode

Titles in the series (89)

A series of episodes that look at databases and the world from a data professional's viewpoint. Written and recorded by Steve Jones, editor of SQLServerCentral and The Voice of the DBA.

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One Database to Rule Them All: This is what you build to juggle 6,000 tweets a second. That's the headline that caught my eye and it's about the challenges of Twitter and the data that they handle. Twitter definitely has a tough problem, one that few of us have, but perhaps they... by Voice of the DBA
2 min listen
Advice for Newcomers: A friend recently was asked to give a presentation on their career to a group of 12 year olds. It was a challenge to engage the students, and my friend was surprised that very few of the kids were interested in technology. I was disappointed as well... by Voice of the DBA
2 min listen
The Gadget Itch: Many of the people that work in technology are interested in gadgets and hardware as much as software. Not all of us, but many of us have had side projects where we've melded hardware and software together. For those of us that are older, and started... by Voice of the DBA
2 min listen
Lobbying for Change: The Connect system from Microsoft doesn't work that well, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't continue to press Microsoft for change. Read the rest of "Lobbying for Change" at SQLServerCentral. by Voice of the DBA
3 min listen
Problems with Big Data: Big Data is constantly in the news. We've been asked at SQLserverCentral to try and develop some articles, perhaps even a stairway to explain what Big Data is and how we might use it. I'm still trying to grasp the concepts myself, and unlike the... by Voice of the DBA
2 min listen
Open Source the MCM: It's over. There's no more MCM program or certification from Microsoft. The last MCM test was given last year and no upgrades are planned for SQL Server 2012 or SQL Server 2014. That's a little sad, though there are quite a few of our SQL... by Voice of the DBA
3 min listen
Laptop Dreams: The Surface 3 was announced last week, and I was underwhelmed by the event, especially the presentation itself. The entire spectable didn't seem to compare to some other companies' announcements. I did, however, find myself thinking about... by Voice of the DBA
3 min listen
Backup Responsibility: One of the most important things that you can do as a DBA, or really as any sort of system administrator, is back up your system.Ensuring that you have have backups, and of course, that you can restore them, is the number one priority for sysadmins.... by Voice of the DBA
2 min listen
Consolidation Matters: Throughout my career I've been looking to consolidate SQL Servers when I find them. The typical employer I've had usually grows their IT infrastructure over time and many projects look like this: Build or buy a software package Buy a new... by Voice of the DBA
3 min listen
Software Engineering in Practice: I ran across a review of a developer's first year at a company. The company is endjin and the poster describes their first year as a "software engineer apprentice," which is an interesting way to look at one's early career. While it's not... by Voice of the DBA
2 min listen
Vocation or Career: Career: an individual's journey through learning, work, and other aspects of life. Vocation: an occupation to which a person is specially drawn or for which he or she is suited, trained, or qualified. Which one describes your current employment... by Voice of the DBA
2 min listen
If or When?: I saw this post recently about security and preparing for a data breach. The title caught my eye because it implies that we're all doomed. Do the rest of you think that? Is it a question of when we'll have a security breach not if? Given the... by Voice of the DBA
2 min listen
The Clustered Index is not the Primary Key: I was reading through a list of links for Database Weekly and ran across this script from Pinal Dave, looking for tables where the clustered index isn't the PK. It struck me that this is one of those facts I consider to be so simple, yet I constantly... by Voice of the DBA
2 min listen
Due Diligence: I often talk with people about building their brands and finding a way to ensure they are a highly desirable employee. One of the ways that I think people can do this is with a technical blog about their career. Having a technical blog allows someone... by Voice of the DBA
3 min listen
No Handwaving Away the DBA: There's a great quote I read, at the end of this article. It says: "...if you think that switching to NoSQL will just let you hand-wave away all of the challenges of running a database, you are terribly misguided." The context is that all too... by Voice of the DBA
3 min listen
Better Training: I was talking with some data professionals recently about training and the value of college, work, or some other method of entering the technology business. I have a few thoughts about the different ways of teaching people about this business,... by Voice of the DBA
2 min listen
The Subtle Push to the Cloud: With SQL Server 2014 released, there's the temptation to upgrade for many DBAs. However the licensing costs and debatable improvements in the product will temper the DBA's enthusiasm with the reality of the ROI seen by management. While reading about... by Voice of the DBA
2 min listen
The Real Scary DBAs: I ran into someone recently that told me they were scared at their job. This person had built a number of ETL jobs to move data around between systems. They were trained as a developer, but had a little experience, got sucked into working with SQL... by Voice of the DBA
2 min listen
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... by Voice of the DBA
3 min listen
Patching Problems: I applied the Windows 8.1 update a few weeks ago and had some issues with my machine. Windows was fine, but I lost my SQL Server service. A few other users, including some of the SQLServerCentral community also had issues and sent me... by Voice of the DBA
3 min listen
How Long Before You Upgrade?: It's 2014. SQL Server 2000 is 14 years old, but there are still quite of you managing instances. SQL Server 2005 is 9 years old, and I'm sure more of you still deal with that version. I know because I work for a software vendor and I'm constantly... by Voice of the DBA
2 min listen
Track Your Consultants: If you pay attention to security issues in software, you've probably heard about man-in-the-middle attacks. These can occur more frequently than you expect, though inside of a company, it's more unlikely that you'll experience one if you have... by Voice of the DBA
3 min listen
Good Practices for Software Development: Would you post your password on a wall in your office? Of course not, because other employees, the cleaning crew, even guests walking around your office would be able to access your system with your account. When I read Brian Kelly's post on... by Voice of the DBA
2 min listen
Who's Licensed?: My employer licenses software to users. Many of you might have SQL Compare, SQL Prompt, or one of our other handy products. If you do, you might have noticed that we have a Redgate login for you that shows your licenses and lets you... by Voice of the DBA
4 min listen
Why Don't We Have Better Practices?: This essay isn't quite Safe For Work (SFW) and might offend a few people, so be warned, but I found it somewhat humorous. It's a look at all the insanity and problems with programming and software in the world. It certainly makes me glad that... by Voice of the DBA
3 min listen
Farewell: This is my last day of work this quarter as I start my sabbatical at 5 o'clock today. I'll be gone for the next six weeks, away from SQLServerCentral, trying to improve and grow myself while staying as unwired as I can during that time. The... by Voice of the DBA
3 min listen
The Relentless Cloud: The march to the cloud is inevitable. No, I don't think all your services will be run from a cloud service, but I do think that some of them will be. Maybe 10% for your company, maybe 90%, but likely somewhere in between. In the efforts to reduce... by Voice of the DBA
3 min listen
Calling Local Speakers: There's likely a call for speakers open somewhere near you. When I was early in my career, I'd see these calls at large conferences like Comdex, TechEd, even the PASS Summit, and I'd think I'd never get the chance to present, with the... by Voice of the DBA
3 min listen
Managers: Most of us have managers that are picked from the ranks of our technical staff. Often the most talented technical person, or most willing technical staff member, is promoted to manager, given a few hours of training on the various tools that he or she... by Voice of the DBA
2 min listen
Failover: I saw a note from someone that had a database set up in a High Availability (HA) configuration for production. This person had received an 823 error on the primary server, but a failover hadn't occurred. This wasn't a critical error, but one that... by Voice of the DBA
3 min listen

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Missing the Office: Recently I traveled to visit a customer who has an in-the-office culture. They have multiple large buildings outside a major US city and almost all their employees (7000+) live nearby and are expected to be in the office the whole week. More senior... by Voice of the DBA
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When Are Your Breaks?: As I work through 2024, I found myself doing a little more vacation planning this year than in previous ones. In 2022 I traveled quite a bit, but my wife went with me often. We went to Europe 5 times that year and added quite a few vacation days... by Voice of the DBA
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CosmosDB APIs Inside SQL Server 2024: CosmosDB has been a great data platform in the Azure cloud that helps companies deal with disparate types of data. The CosmosDB APIs include those for MongoDB, PostgreSQL, Cassandra, and Gremlin. These wire-level protocols let you work in a way that... by Voice of the DBA
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The Journey to Change: I assume most of you reading this work with SQL Server, at least for some of your workday. I know there are plenty of you who also support Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL, or some other database platform. The results in our (Redgate's) showed that many... by Voice of the DBA
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The Cloud Database Cost Analysis: There is a skill that I think DBAs and sysadmins will need to develop: cloud cost analysis. I've thought this was important for quite a few years, and I've been (unsuccessfully) lobbying for cost information to be gathered and analyzed in . Hopefully,... by Voice of the DBA
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Another View of DevOps: Chocolatey Solutions Engineer said, "DevOps isn’t something you do, but rather, it’s a way of doing things. What works for us here, may not work for you there, so you adjust." He then went on to say that DevOps is a way of working that reduces... by Voice of the DBA
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An Experimental Mindset: I wrote recently since I've found far too many people who didn't know Git well (or at all) and they seemed hesitant to experiment and learn. Is this because of being too busy? Do we have so many people who are working in tech where "it's just a job"... by Voice of the DBA
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Re-platforming: Re-platforming is the process of moving a system to a new platform. Imagine taking an ASP.NET/SQL Server website and moving to Azure Functions on Azure SQL Database. Or maybe taking a Java client/server app with Oracle and moving it to a series of... by Voice of the DBA
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Protecting Off Hours: to allow employees to protect themselves from unreasonable calls and emails from work during off-hours. You can read more about it, but a bill was passed to allow employees to ignore calls and messages without repercussion It is expected to... by Voice of the DBA
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Growing Skills at Work: Redgate released the results of their recently, and I was part of . As we were talking, one of the things that struck me was the high number of people who had picked skills as being a challenge for their organization. In a single environment, , and... by Voice of the DBA
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Navigating the Database Landscape: The title of our keynote session at the is Navigating the Database Landscape, and I'll be delivering part of the talk, along with Grant Fritchey and Kathi Kellenberger today, Mar 13. This is based on the , as well as our experience working with... by Voice of the DBA
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Is This a Good DBA Job Description?: I saw this on one of the syndicated SQL Server Central blogs: . This is mostly a list of things, but it covers a lot of the general types of things that many of us expect a DBA to do. However, my question is whether you think this is a good... by Voice of the DBA
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Assistants in the Age of AI: When I started working for a living, there were secretaries in many organizations. These were people who actually did a lot of correspondence (written or verbal) and busy work for managers or executives. Over time, as email and computers became... by Voice of the DBA
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Creating Candidate Interest: It can be hard to find candidates for positions these days. I know there are a lot of people looking for jobs, but are they the ones you want? Are they a good fit for your team? Those are hard questions to answer when culling through resumes,... by Voice of the DBA
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Using AI for Security: AI (Artificial Intelligence) systems and technology has been all over our industry for the past year or so, ever since ChatGPT released the initial public version in late 2022. It seems that there is a lot of hype around the possibilities, with plenty... by Voice of the DBA
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The Art of the Code Review: The inspiration for this was a piece about . Throughout my career, I've seen code reviews grow and change. From formal meetings to automated notifications and asynchronous discussions to complete lip service to the process. I'd like to think that most... by Voice of the DBA
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The Dangers of Not Upgrading: About ten years ago my sister-in-law broke the screen on her mobile phone. She'd had an older iPhone and when she went to upgrade, none of the upgrade processes worked because her OS was so far behind that they couldn't transfer her information... by Voice of the DBA
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Free SQL Server: No, I don't have a way to license a SQL Server instance for your application for free. Microsoft still charges for production workloads. However, there are several ways that you can do development or testing for free, or at a greatly reduced cost. Bob... by Voice of the DBA
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Visual Design for Safety: I drive a Tesla Model Y and love it. They're not for everyone and not for every situation, but I think it's the best car I've owned. My wife feels the same way, and if we had a need for two cars, we'd likely get another one. The car is fun, and I look... by Voice of the DBA
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Am I Good At My Job?: I was talking with a friend recently about some of their co-workers. In this case, they were complaining that another person couldn't do some tasks that my friend considered relatively easy things. Deal with an unusual restore situation, write some... by Voice of the DBA
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This is Why You Use Git for Scripts: Git has become a fantastic tool for me, and many other technologists, over the last ten years. It's almost ubiquitous in most of my clients, and so many people are comfortable with it. Many others aren't, which is why I started a (and other Ops... by Voice of the DBA
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Un-Stable Teams: I've always valued having a team of people I know and can work with. While I haven't had a lot of long-term jobs before Redgate, I have had a few positions that lasted more than a year and appreciated working with the same group for a long time. We... by Voice of the DBA
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Do You Have a Jeff?: In the (worth a read), there is a character called Brent, who is to go-to person for everything in IT. I don't know if this character was modeled after , but I always picture him when I re-read the book, and I suspect he was that person in previous... by Voice of the DBA
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Ranomware vs. AI: Ransomware has been a growing and shrinking problem in the modern world. Every time I think that some new defenses and protections are preventing ransomware from being a problem, I see another issue. Recently, I saw with an attack and a few friends... by Voice of the DBA
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Lobbying for Change

Lobbying for Change

Description

Titles in the series (89)

More Episodes from Voice of the DBA

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