Voice of the DBA
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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Half of All Engineers
04/28/2026
Half of All Engineers
The AI LLM boom seems to show no sign of slowing down. Each time I think we've reached some level of crazy use or predictions, things take another turn. I still find myself pinging back and forth between this will be amazingly good and horrifyingly bad. Sometimes on the same day. Read the rest of
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Local Agents
04/23/2026
Local Agents
Recently I saw , saying that someone could build a general purpose coding agent in 131 lines of Python code. That's a neat idea, though I'm not sure that this is better than just using Claude Code, especially as the agent still uses the online version of the Claude model from Anthropic to generate code or perform other tasks. There's a video in the article showing how this code can be used to perform some quick tasks on a computer. However, the code isn't specific to Anthropic. It can be used with any LLM, and I started doing just that, with a copy of the code from the article, but modified to use a local AI LLM running under Ollama. You can see and feel free to download and play with it. It's expecting a local LLM on 11434. Read the rest of
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Every Database Has Problems
04/21/2026
Every Database Has Problems
Every database platform has some strengths and weaknesses. Some more than others. I caught from , and it made my day. I was having a tough one when this site got me to smile and chuckle out loud a few times. I especially like the MySQL and SQL Lite links (again NSFW). Every platform that you might choose to use to back an application can work in many situations. Certainly scale and load are factors to consider, but for the major relational database platforms, most will work fine for many applications. Some might work better than others, but there are always tradeoffs. There are pros and cons. This is also true for the major NoSQL platforms, though most of my experience is with relational ones, so I tend to lean in that direction. At the same time, any platform can fail horribly. Read the rest of
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The New OS Wars
04/19/2026
The New OS Wars
In the last year I've seen a lot of statements about data and sovereignty between countries. While there have been concerns in the past, there seems to be more worry around the world with AI services primarily being run by, and hosted by, US companies. Plenty of my customers at have concerns over our ability to see data when we run AI models, though we don't store the data. Once the session ends, Recently I saw a piece about , specifically the Windows OS from Microsoft. They are looking to move to their own version of Linux, as well as a number of open source software packages. This quote was fascinating to me: "We can no longer accept that our data, our infrastructure, and our strategic decisions depend on solutions whose rules, pricing, evolution, and risks we do not control." Read the rest of
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Working Better Under Pressure
04/16/2026
Working Better Under Pressure
One of my colleagues wrote , about how a DBA's pushback on bad code isn't to be difficult, it's because they can see the future. I never thought of myself as a modern-day , predicting the future of system performance. Apparently I had another title besides DBA. Working under pressure and with short deadlines often leads to short cuts. I've made them. I've implemented quick hot fixes. I've forgotten to port changes back to development databases. I've increased our tech debt load, just to solve a more immediate problem. Read the rest of
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Who is Irresponsible?
04/14/2026
Who is Irresponsible?
There was about an engineer using Claude and ChatGPT to build a feature. I am not sure how true these posts are or if they are designed to just create engagement, but it's still an interesting topic. The part that makes me think is that (supposedly) the engineer was fired because their "data" (code) was sent to American servers. The code was then deleted and the feature will be built without AI. First, read some of the responses before you form an opinion. There are some funny ones in there. There are a few I think are overblown and silly, and I skim past them. Someone is always more upset than I am, and more than I think they rationally should be, so I tend to let their outrage flow by me. Read the rest of
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Poor Names
04/12/2026
Poor Names
It's always interesting to me when I give product feedback to engineers at Redgate on their demos. Quite often they've built a feature that uses AdventureWorks or Pagila (PostgreSQL) or some other well known schema to evaluate how their particular thing works with a database. I try to remind them that many databases aren't well modeled and designed with consistent naming. I ran across that isn't showcasing databases, but it does show some poor naming in data being stored in a PDF. The developer who had to automate a process had to map these fields to database fields, which also might not be named very clearly. In fact, I think I've seen a few database models that used column names like the field names in the PDF. Read the rest of
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Acting with Confidence
04/09/2026
Acting with Confidence
Recently, I saw a graph about making decisions that showed the impact of both reversibility and consequences. and how one might approach decisions. If things are easily reversible or have a low consequence, we tend to make a decision and move on. Or we are willing to make a decision. One of the examples of such a decision was choosing what to wear out to dinner. It's easy to change, and (in general) of little consequence. Choosing to send a large amount of money to someone through Venmo (or some other mechanism), can be hard to reverse and have substantial consequences. This made me think of some of the DBA and developer decisions I've made in the past. When we work with databases, the changes we make can have a large impact and be quite consequential to our organization. Downtime, data quality, etc. could all impact revenue, profit, reputation, or even future prospects of survival. That can be a lot of pressure when you are deciding to refactor a data model or adjust a lot of data during a deployment. Read the rest of
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Barely Reviewed Code
04/07/2026
Barely Reviewed Code
Years ago I was giving a talk on software development and asked the audience how long it takes to review a PR that has 10 lines changed. Answers were in the minutes to tens of minutes range. I then asked how long it takes to review a PR that has 1,000 lines changed. Some people said hours, but a few people said seconds. I've often taken the latter, pessimistic view. Not because I don't think engineers want to do a good job, but because I know human behavior. Most humans will get bored, lose focus, and end up skimming through a large amount of code. Many (most?) people don't want to spend all that time, after all they have they their own code to write. They'll just approve the PR and assume testing will catch any major issues. Read the rest of
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AI Database Central
03/31/2026
AI Database Central
SQL Server Central has been a great success over the last 25 years. We've helped a lot of people improve their careers with the Microsoft Data Platform, primarily SQL Server, but we've published articles on other aspects of databases, including other platforms. I last month, with a few stories in various pieces. We even got Brian Knight to contribute a piece on . Over the years, we experimented with trying to get an SSIS Central or a SSRS Central off the ground. However, we struggled to find other people who would have been willing to partner with us to provide content and answer questions. Eventually, we gave up, though I wish today we'd have pushed forward with a PostgreSQL Central site a few years back. Read the rest of
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Prompt Requests
03/29/2026
Prompt Requests
One of the challenges of AI-assisted coding agents is that they tend to produce A LOT of code. Even in refactoring or migration changes, the AIs can work quickly and generate such a volume of code that the process starts to become overwhelming. For pull requests, for CI/CD build systems, and certainly for human reviewers, they can be overwhelmed. This can become a real problem with OSS projects, where submissions can grow exponentially to the point that maintainers stop looking at pull requests. I suspect the same thing might happen in corporate repositories when lots of developers can refactor or submit huge amounts of code produced by AI agents in a fraction of the time it took a year ago. I was listening to an interview with an experienced software developer and OSS project maintainer who said that he preferred getting a "prompt request" that contained a description of a problem and the specification for a solution that he could submit to his own LLM to get the code. Rather than use an AI to review a code in a PR written by a human or AI agent, a great prompt that can communicates the problem and solution is preferred. Read the rest of
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Is Your Time "Free"?
03/26/2026
Is Your Time "Free"?
We do a lot of research at , often contacting customers or and asking questions, getting feedback, listening to their challenges or criticisms. We take that information and it helps guide us to build the tools that help you in your job. Recently I watched a call with a customer that uses our famous in their job and has for years. In this case, the call was about the value of and how that might fit in their organization. The person performed a lot of manual work to deploy code changes, and could see the way in which Flyway helps, but wasn't interested in saving time. They saw their time as free. I assume their employer felt that way as well. Read the rest of
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Doing the Little Things
03/24/2026
Doing the Little Things
I wrote recently and watching planes take off. That's been a fun thing for me to do when I'm stuck at the airport. I can see a plane roll down the runway every 35-45s during busy times. This time I was sitting by a window in the hotel, working and watching. There was a moment when I realized no planes were taking off. I looked and saw a vehicle rolling down the runway, and then realized there were two, one from each direction. It was an , looking for anything that might damage a plane. Read the rest of
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Everything is the right question away
03/22/2026
Everything is the right question away
When I was young and needed to learn about something, I had to go to a library or a bookstore to get information. I often started by looking through an encyclopedia. I had to wander between entries to learn more about the topic I was researching. A few lucky friends had their own copy of an encyclopedia, which was nice since we could research at home. At some point these collections of information were moved to CD/DVDs, which made them more portable and more accessible to a larger group of people than in the past. In the 90s we had the innovation of search engines, which allows us to more quickly move through information. There was more information available on the Internet than was ever published in encyclopedias. Over the years, these search engines improved their ability to rank and recommend information that is relevant to your query. However, you still need some idea of what you are trying to learn about. You have to direct the searches, although the Google auto-complete felt very predictive at times. Read the rest of
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Hidden Heroes
03/19/2026
Hidden Heroes
A few weeks ago I was in , at the facility where the Allies decoded and broke many of the German Nazi messages in World War II. It's quite a facility and museum, and I hope to go back. I was distracted that day and didn't get a lot of time to enjoy the exhibits and really learn more about what happened there. I was there for our Redgate 2026 Company Kickoff, and as a part of that, two different executives in our company shared their stories of people who had worked there. What was interesting is that until we planned this event, these two people had no idea that there were people they knew well, who had been part of the effort to end World War II at Bletchley Park. This facility can be considered to be one of the birthplaces of computing. Read the rest of .
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Changing Data Types
03/17/2026
Changing Data Types
Recently I was working with a customer that is trying to smooth out their database development process. They noted that a lot of changes tend to take a significant amount of time and impact their availability. They came to Redgate to see if might be a way to improve the effectiveness of their internal groups that build, deploy, and manage their database software. We can help, but often when I get called to help architect things, we are trying to decide if the customer is a good fit for our solutions. Since we work on a subscription model, we want to be sure customers are happy and get value from their decision. Otherwise they have a poor experience and don't renew. This might be because they aren't ready, or it might be that the question wasn't considered of whether our solution fits their environment well. In any case, I usually dig into the goals and challenges they've faced with their current process. Read the rest of
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Breaking Down Your Work
03/15/2026
Breaking Down Your Work
I saw and how he goes about approaching the game of American football. I don't know if this meme is true, but certainly, his efforts to prepare have been a reported issue during Murray's career. The post actually deals with sales and analyzing the reasons for deal success or failure, something I've been able to witness at Redgate the last few years. It's interesting to me to see the sales process examined, though I don't make sales. Incidentally, is one I appreciate, referencing Kobe Bryant and . I like the approach of working and asking questions to become better. Read the rest of
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Multiple Deployment Processes
03/13/2026
Multiple Deployment Processes
We had a Simple Talks podcast recently where we discussed roll forward vs roll back. You can and listen to our thoughts, but one interesting place was when we talked about deployments. Grant mentioned that he deployed from version control/source control at a previous employer. I asked him whether he did that for every system. His response: "Well, ..." He admitted that most, but not all, databases came from a controlled source. There were some systems that had a more ad hoc change process. I wonder how many of you have consistent processes throughout your organization. I suspect not many of you do, especially if an organization isn't small. Often, different groups and applications are in a constant state of flux, with lots of different processes and protocols. Read the rest of
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A Full Shutdown
03/11/2026
A Full Shutdown
I have the opportunity to work with a variety of customers on their database systems, often with the focus on how they can build and deploy changes to their databases. Often, they have a process around how and when they make changes. Some have maintenance windows, though often these are approved times for changes rather than a true window during which a system is shut down. I ran into a customer recently who scheduled a system shutdown for their deployments. This was a surprise to me in 2026, as I thought most people would have learned to deploy changes to live systems. However, I know that many teams make changes that would render portions of the database inaccessible for a period of time, so maybe that's not true. Maybe they just make changes and deal with the impact on clients. Read the rest of
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Not Just an Upgrade
03/09/2026
Not Just an Upgrade
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Writing as an Art and a Job
03/06/2026
Writing as an Art and a Job
I remember listening to an interview with in the mid 2000s. He was the back page columnist for Sports Illustrated for years as well as a writer in various pieces. He talked about how he would lay on the couch in his office sometimes, trying to think of what to write. His kids would come in looking for attention, but couldn't understand that Dad was "working". I had been writing the editorials at SQL Server Central and I could relate. Moving from 2 to 5 (eventually 6) editorials a week was a lot of work. It was stressful in a way I couldn't imagine when I started writing them. I quickly realized that if I had to produce a new one every day, I was in trouble. There would be days I'd struggle. I needed to have a queue of pieces at least partially ready if I were going to manage this job and find balance with my family. Read the rest of
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Rollback vs. Roll Forward
03/04/2026
Rollback vs. Roll Forward
The Advocates at Redgate Software had an interesting discussion about deployments in databases and how you go forward or back from the point at which you discover a problem. You can , but a few things occurred to me while we were having our discussion. The first thing is we all agree data makes things hard. A database is a stateful object, and dealing with stateful objects is hard. That is one of the things I’ve internalized the last few years that has tremendously changed how I work with Redgate customers. The more I consider state, the more I am able to work with the challenges that databases bring. Read the rest of
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Having a Little Fun at SQL Server Central
02/27/2026
Having a Little Fun at SQL Server Central
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Testing is Becoming More Important
02/25/2026
Testing is Becoming More Important
Many of us know that testing our code is important. The adoption of unit testing by many software application developers as a normal course of business has dramatically improved the quality of applications. Mobile software, especially, has benefited from the requirement for most software to include, and constantly run, a suite of unit tests. For database software, I find relatively few organizations formally test their database code. A few people have adopted or the , but most don't bother. In fact, many queries that are embedded in application code, or built by ORMs, aren't tested beyond a developer looking at the results from their own (limited set of) test data. That often doesn't catch errors until someone in production runs their application against a larger set of data. Read the rest of
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Can You Let Go of Determinism
02/23/2026
Can You Let Go of Determinism
Why do we reboot machines when something goes wrong? I'm sure all have done it, and I would guess quite a few of you have found situations where this seems to fix issues, but there isn't an underlying root cause that you can pinpoint. This is a fairly accepted way of dealing with issues, but have you thought about why this is a way to solve some problems? The main thing that a reboot does is return the system to a know starting state. It's why quite a few people complain about some modern laptops and mobile devices because they avoid restarts and try to sleep/wake instead. Most software expects to work on a stateless machine, so restarts help find a known good state. Read the rest of
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Doing Good at SQL Server Central
02/20/2026
Doing Good at SQL Server Central
This is part of a few memories from the founders of SQL Server Central, celebrating 25 years of operation this month. We did photoshoots at Redgate many years ago. We had a bunch of props, including some phrases written down. We could create our own, but my handwriting is atrocious (likely why I never became an architect), but I ended up with this one: Read the rest of
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Engineer Lessons
02/18/2026
Engineer Lessons
Many of you reading this have a number of years working with technology. You might have 1 year or 20 years, but you've likely grown and learned along the way. Some of you may also know someone who has several years of seniority in a position but not that many years of experience. In this case, a person might have been working at this job for 5 years, but they really have one year of experience that's been repeated 5 times. That's been a common complaint over quite a few years from people who interview others. They find candidates often have very limited experience, yet are applying for senior roles. These candidates are ones who have just a few years of experience, but have ended up repeating those few years over and over. Read the rest of
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Expanding into Print
02/13/2026
Expanding into Print
This is part of a few memories from the founders of SQL Server Central, celebrating 25 years of operation this month. When we started SQL Server Central, our goal was to build a great resource that helped other people advance in their careers and also made some money. Our decisions in building the site were based around the digital world and treating the community as we would want to be treated. Over time, however, we realized that continuing to grow this business was hard in a digital-only world. We experimented and proposed helping others build similar sites, like ReportingServicesCentral (which would have been great) or NotificationServicesCentral (which would not), but ultimately, we weren't experts enough in those areas and couldn't find people willing to partner. Everyone thought they could do it themselves and that the knowledge was the hard part, and execution was easy. The truth is that the reverse is the way it works. Read the rest of
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The Power of Data and Privacy
02/11/2026
The Power of Data and Privacy
I tend to be fairly careful with data, especially data on this site. When we started the site, we were worried about potential issues and worked hard to ensure we kept our systems safe and limited the attack surface area for personal information. We also declined the various offers we had to sell our list of subscribers to marketing firms. We know that some places add value for marketing, but some abuse the trust of their users and our approach was always to be careful. When we sold the site to Redgate, we emphasized the need for this trust, and to date, Redgate has been a great steward of your personal information. I regularly field requests for uses of data from other marketing people, and almost all get declined. I've had a number of great managers who have supported me on this because we value your privacy. Read the rest of
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The DBA is Dead; Long Live the DBA
02/09/2026
The DBA is Dead; Long Live the DBA
I remember getting a job at a startup in the Denver Tech Center. This was shortly after SQL Server 7 was released, with a marketing campaign that the platform was auto-tuning and wouldn't require a DBA. My colleague asked me if I wanted to learn Cold Fusion and have a longer career. I declined and stuck with this SQL Server thing, which has seemed to work out pretty well over the years. I was reminded of this when I saw a "" post, this time from an Oracle DBA. There are plenty of links in there from Larry Ellison and Oracle about how some version of Oracle won't require a DBA. I've seen (and elsewhere ) about this topic where people seem to think DBAs can be replaced. Or maybe they want them replaced. Read the rest of
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