Poor Name Choice
Voice of the DBA
I wrote recently about some work with Redgate Clone, and one of the things I did was start up a blank container instance of SQL Server from the image named empty-sql-current. This image contains SQL Server 2019. Clearly, "current" was a poor choice. I see this often in various places, where someone will reference "current", "new", "latest", or some other term that denotes the most recent changes. If everyone reading the reference is doing so with knowledge of the past and at a time close to publication, this works fine. However, a year later, does this make sense? At the same time, I do like...
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Data > Hype
Voice of the DBA
There is a ton of hype now about using GenAI for various tasks, especially for technical workers. There are lots of executives who would like to use AI to reduce their cost of labor, whether that's getting more out of their existing staff or perhaps even reducing staff. Salesforce . I'm not sure they let engineers go, but it seems . For many technical people, we know the hype of a GenAI agent writing code is just that: hype. The agents can't do the same job that humans do, at least not for some humans. We still need humans to prompt the AIs, make decisions, and maybe most importantly, . I'm...
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Practice Until You Don't Get It Wrong
Voice of the DBA
I wrote recently about . He/she was fired, without cause in my opinion, when a production database was damaged while following a document for developer setup. The situation felt like a mistake, and one that wasn't necessarily the fault of the individual. To me, this was extremely poor handling of the situation from a CTO. In the , someone pointed out that it might not just be a new employee who makes a mistake that causes downtime. Certainly, an inexperienced employee could have caused the issue, but I know there are plenty people with lots of time in a position who make similar mistakes. It...
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The Selfish Case for Learning AI
Voice of the DBA
I ran across recently. The headline is this: 55% of businesses admit wrong decisions in making employees redundant when bringing AI into the workforce. That sounds a little ominous for those making these decisions, and a lot of you might be saying, "I could have told you that. Using AI to replace people is a bad decision." On the surface, I agree. I dislike the idea that companies will opt for a semi-competent AI bot or agent to replace people, thereby further exacerbating the challenges faced by many workers in the modern world. Read the rest of
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Reducing Cloud Cost
Voice of the DBA
. Some orgs think they're out of control and . Some orgs are . A lot of IT spend over the years has been seen as a cost center, with many executives trying to limit the growth or spend, even while they aim for digital transformations of their businesses. Throughout my career, it's been interesting seeing the tension of groups trying to take advantage of technology and the finance departments trying to manage costs. The cloud brings some of the same debates/arguments/concerns to the forefront. Partially because of scale, as we can add cloud resources much quicker than we can with a CapEx...
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DevOps is DevOps
Voice of the DBA
DevOps can mean a lot of things, but I find in practice that this results in a team using Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment/Delivery using automation to check and evaluate your software in some way. This should result in quicker delivery of updates and changes to customers, better agility, and higher quality of code. That last one only comes if you use testing and try to ensure your code is well-written. It's easy to just use DevOps to throw out more poorly written code that doesn't perform well. Read the rest of
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Can/Can't Do/Don't
Voice of the DBA
The other day, I asked my daughter if she wanted me to make her some eggs. She responded with a "Yes!" in text and came to sit up at the counter while I cooked for us both. We chatted a bit, and at one point she said, "Thanks for cooking, but it's not that I can't cook." I laughed a bit and responded with "this isn't a can/can't situation, it's a do/don't or will/won't one." I know my girl can cook; I made sure all my kids learned how to cook. It's that they often choose not to, hunting for leftovers, going for takeout, or skipping meals. Read the rest of
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Be Wary of Data
Voice of the DBA
I fly a lot, as you might have guessed if you read my blog regularly. In 2025, I've been on 56 United planes as I write this, with about 10 left to go before the end of the year. One of the things United does is sometimes send out a quick "survey" after a flight, checking to see if everything went smoothly. I don't always fill these out, but recently I decided to give some feedback as I had a great experience. I really wanted to just complement the onboard crew, but the survey was quite a few pages (10?) and a lot of questions. I started to try and fill it out, but lost focus after a few...
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The Journey to PostgreSQL (or anything)
Voice of the DBA
Most of you reading this work in technology, and I assume that you've had to learn something new on the job. Technology is constantly evolving, even on our existing platforms. On top of that, we are regularly given tasks that are outside of our current skill sets. Maybe not far outside, but to meet the changing demands of our jobs, we need to learn new things. I ran across an interesting post (on a new site) from Brent Ozar. I think that guy writes as much as me, but he wrote this one: . It's a little provocative, but there are in PostgreSQL. I won't go into whether learning PostgreSQL is a...
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We Should Demand Better
Voice of the DBA
I ran across an interesting open letter. Most of these are from individuals, often complaining or lamenting on the way something in the world works, or maybe doesn't work. This latest letter was from the Chief InfoSec Officer at JPMorganChase, a large worldwide bank. was written to the software suppliers looking to do business with JPMorganChase, especially those in the SaaS area (Software as a Service). The letter opens by noting that SaaS is enabling cyber attackers and asks for three things: prioritize security over features, modernize security architecture, and work with security...
info_outlineI saw a note from someone recently that reminded me of Policy-Based Management. This was (is?) a technology in SQL Server that I thought might have great potential. I even had a few presentations on the subject, but sadly I've rarely seen anyone implement it. I'm sure some do, but I think for me, this is dead technology.
There have been other tech items from which I've been turned off or abandoned over the years. It seems in SQL Server, we have some tech that even Microsoft has abandoned and doesn't put any development resources into improving.
Read the rest of Dead to Me