When Are Your Breaks?
Voice of the DBA
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 around my work trips. My wife thought that was a great year. Last year, 2023, was different. I traveled more (36 trips), with most of them being short. When I traveled that much, I wanted to end trips quickly and get back home. I learned that was too many, and also too disruptive for life. I got behind on things I needed to do at home, my wife went...
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The Code Freeze
Voice of the DBA
One of the ideas behind DevOps is that we minimize the time between code commit and deployment to production. We want to avoid work-in-progress and bottlenecks to getting our software into the hands of customers. This has led a lot of companies to release more often, albeit with smaller sets of features. The total number of things delivered under DevOps might not be greater, but it often is more targeted to those things our customers want/need/use. However, the idea of releasing often means that we try not to stack up too much work before deploying it. What does that mean for holidays and the...
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When is it time for a new job?
Voice of the DBA
I subscribe to quite a few newsletters, and one of them is for job hunters. I have a great job, maybe the best job for me, but I like to keep in touch with what's going on because I, well, I have job insecurity and worry about being without a job. I think this is leftover from childhood. I also want to know how to help others in finding their dream job. Recently there was a question asking when it was time for a new job How can you tell (for yourself) when you should be seeking new opportunities? It might not be easy to recognize for many of you. Perhaps you don't realize there are other...
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Under the Bus
Voice of the DBA
I've had a good career in database work. I've had success, and I've had some failures, fortunately the former far outpacing the latter. In my career across many companies, the code I've written has tended to work well, or at least well enough. I've managed systems and ensured a high uptime, and solved issues quickly. I have left quite a few jobs in technology, some because I was unhappy, some for better opportunities. I was asked to leave one job. I disagreed with my boss, thought he was a jerk, and our CTO told me this person was more valuable than I was at that time. The CTO suggested I move...
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CosmosDB APIs Inside SQL Server 2024
Voice of the DBA
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 is compatible with those systems for storing data. That's coming to SQL Server. Read the rest of
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The Journey to Change
Voice of the DBA
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 organizations, indeed most, have more than one database platform in production. This was also a theme in our Data Community Summit and Redgate Summit keynotes, where Ryan and Grant discussed their journey to learn a new platform (PostgreSQL). One, a requirement () for a new job, and another, an opportunity () as the company focus shifted. I assume...
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The Cloud Database Cost Analysis
Voice of the DBA
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, this work will get done soon, as I see more companies asking their technical people to provide analysis and justification of the resources being billed for in the cloud. Basecamp analyzed its costs in 2023 and . I've seen other companies decide they were saving money in the cloud. Many, however, are likely unsure of the total return they get...
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Another View of DevOps
Voice of the DBA
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 time to introduce changes, while at the same time making changes traceable, accountable, and revertable. I've seen many companies try to copy what another company has done, especially with regards to DevOps and software development. I see companies copy the organization of teams from , , or others. Often quite a bit of time and effort is spent...
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An Experimental Mindset
Voice of the DBA
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" and not because they enjoy technology? Or has management in too many places beaten people down to the point they don't want to try things? Perhaps your coworkers are resistant to change (or lazy) and you don't want to discuss new ideas with them. Read the rest of
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Re-platforming
Voice of the DBA
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 microservices against MongoDB. Those changes could be a net benefit to your organization in the end, but they aren't quick or easy. They're often fraught with various challenges that can cause a lot of stress while creeping over budget. There's if you embark upon a re-platform. Often this takes place when an organization is looking to modernize...
info_outlineThere is no shortage of webinar events taking place for technology professionals. From our monthly Redgate DevOps webinars to the GroupBy conference to PASS Virtual chapters, there's a huge set of online events that you can attend and learn from. It's gotten to the point where you could have a full time job watching webinars if you could find someone to fund your efforts.
Every year PASS does a 24 Hours of PASS, which is a neat event where 24 hour long sessions in a row are broadcast. It's a lot of work to get this going, and certainly not many people want to watch 24 hours in a row, but it does seem to be fun. That same idea is being taken a step further tomorrow with All Day DevOps 2017.
Read the rest of "All DevOps All Day"