Are IT Certifications Still Relevant?
Voice of the DBA
I've got a few certifications and quite a few more that have expired or aren't relevant. Does anyone think Windows NT 4.0 or SQL Server 6.5 matter? If you need help in those areas, ask someone else. Unless you have a crazy budget with a willingness to pay a ridiculous hourly rate. Kamil Nowinski had . He had ten reasons, and if you want to watch the entire show, you'll hear his reasons and some rationale why he thinks they matter. It's a good set of reasons: keeping up with tech, practicing learning, demonstrating a commitment to some technology, finding a community of certified colleagues,...
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The DBAccountant
Voice of the DBA
One of the things that I've found with cloud computing services is that the people involved with managing these resources sometimes get asked to become financial accountants. I saw an interesting post from SQL Rod asking about this new task as something all of us might need to consider a part of our job in the modern world. He asks if we are This isn't in the sense of being the Financial DBA trying to manage costs in the cloud, though that is part of his post. It's more about making smart financial decisions. Certainly, as more workloads move to the cloud, and they are for many of us, we...
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The On-Call Load
Voice of the DBA
For most of us working in technology, I think we understand that if something is broken we might need to work. Not that we have to, or we need to, but we might need to. Perhaps you feel differently, or your company approaches on-call in another way. If so, let me know today how you deal with staff being on-call. In my career, there are jobs with formal on-call, informal on-call, or even no on-call. In the latter situation, there isn't anyone who is prepared to handle issues outside of normal working hours, but that doesn't mean if management calls you can ignore them. It's that the...
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Action Over Knowledge
Voice of the DBA
I saw a quote recently that resonated with me. It's not something I've often struggled with, but I have at times. Here's the quote: "Life rewards action, not intelligence. Many brilliant people talk themselves out of getting started, and being smart doesn't help very much without the courage to act. You can't win if you're not in the game." - Read the rest of
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Seagull Management
Voice of the DBA
Last year, I read , a book by U2 lead singer, Bono. Bill Gates listed this as one of the top books to read at one point, so I picked it up and dove in. I have enjoyed U2s music since I was in high school, and was interested to hear what made Bill Gates recommend his book. The book is partially a journey of U2, but mostly a look at how Bono's view of the world and life has changed over time. Bono grew beyond music in his life to become an activist and try to shape the world into a better place. Whether you agree with his efforts or focus or not, it's admirable that he has tried to be more than...
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Missing the Office
Voice of the DBA
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 people can opt for 4 10-hour shifts rather than 5 8-hour shifts, but with few exceptions, they have people in the office. I hadn't seen that in a long time. Almost every customer is mostly remote or some level of hybrid (usually 2-3 days a week in the office). What's more, they have an open culture, with rows of desks for teams and spaces between...
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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...
info_outlineI set up the sqlmemorial.org site earlier this year. It's not quite complete, with some networking and process to work out, but it's there, which is the important thing. The site gives us a way to remember celebrate those that we've known as a part of our SQL community.
There are only a few people that I've personally known well, and fewer still that I've met. As a result, there are only a few people about whom I can write something about from my own memories.
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