Concerns over AI Chat Privacy
Voice of the DBA
One of the major concerns for using GenAI tools is who is reading the data you submit as a prompt, and will this data be used in future training of the model? In other words, could someone using a future model access the data I put in a GenAI chat? It's a valid concern, and not just because of the vendors. There is a lawsuit over the use of data by OpenAI, and . Since this is a lawsuit, there is always a chance that some of the data retained gets entered into a court document or even that it might be read aloud in court and captured in a transcript. Read the rest of
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Data Sovereignty in the Cloud
Voice of the DBA
I remember when the US government wanted to access data in Azure that was physically stored in Ireland. I and linked to the article back in 2020. This has typically been more of a concern for the EU (and other countries) than the US, but I'm sure there are organizations in the US that use the cloud and don't want their data accessed by other countries' governments. Recently, . The Microsoft response was that they (Microsoft) cannot guarantee data sovereignty for French customers. If the US government served a warrant under the Cloud Act, a US corporation would have to turn over the...
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Ghostworkers
Voice of the DBA
Ghostworking is pretending to be busy at work. According to , it's on the rise with a number of people looking for other remote opportunities at other organizations. Some employees might be just wasting time at the office, though I suspect there is a minority that are actually working at another (second) job. Maybe they are growing a side hustle or maybe they've even accepted another job, and they're spending part of there day on those tasks. This might be part of the reason that many managers want to get people back into the office. I think that's flawed as a) most managers aren't great...
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Your Favorite Improvement
Voice of the DBA
SQL Server 2025 is out in preview form. CTP 2.0 is available for you to test, and that have been added to the platform. Some of these are already in the cloud, but this is your chance to test them in your environment. This is version 17.x, though I don't know we've really had 17 versions to work with. In any case, there have been a lot of versions in my career. I've connected to and worked on all of these: 4.2, 6.0, 6.5, 7.0, 2000, 2005, 2008, 2008R2, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2022. No 2025 yet (other than install and a few basic queries), but that's coming. Read the rest of
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Can You Ask for a Raise?
Voice of the DBA
I mean, you can ask for a raise. It's always an option, but is now the time to ask for a raise in this economic climate, where businesses can be unsettled and there are a lot of tech workers looking for jobs. I even saw a piece that noted . While that's not where most people work, it seems that often other CIOs/CTOs look to the big tech firms for guidance, and they may choose to hire fewer new staffers as well. This is on my mind at work after reading that I added to the newsletter. It's a response in the advice column where a reader asks how to go about asking for a raise when they think...
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The Next Great Thing
Voice of the DBA
At , I was chatting with Brent about a few things, including AI, which we think is changing the world. I've got my set of AI experiments going, and I do believe we will fundamentally alter work and how we use computers in the future. Not sure if it's for the better or worse, but things are changing and will change more. Read the rest of
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Who is Using Standard Edition?
Voice of the DBA
For many years, most of the SQL Server installations I managed or deployed to were Standard Edition. Even in large companies that had agreements with Microsoft, since each instance had a cost (even at a discount), we were careful about where we installed Enterprise Edition. These days with Microsoft wanting to charge everyone for every core, it makes sense to use Standard Edition wherever you can. Read the rest of
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Carrots and Sticks
Voice of the DBA
Often, we work on projects that might span a significant amount of time. Weeks, months, even years can be devoted to working on one system, or the same system. We may find that our motivation rises and wanes at different times. We get excited and motivated to get things done, and also become discouraged or distracted when challenges arise. Not all of us, or not all the time, but it is hard to maintain a high level of productivity and motivation over time. For managers, it can be a challenge to keep a team moving over time and focused on achieving goals. Life gets in the way, people take...
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Storage Enhancements
Voice of the DBA
There was a time when I knew a lot about the various storage technologies available for a database. It was important when designing a server around the various requirements for size and performance balanced against the limitations of hardware. The rapid growth of solid state storage and the adoption of storage area networks have changed the game for many of us. We no longer care or think about storage. It's just a service that we consume in our databases, and while we might demand more IOPS capacity, we often don't worry too much about how that's provided to our systems. Read the rest of
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A Well Deserved Break
Voice of the DBA
This is my last day of work. Not forever, just for six weeks. I'm off on after today and won't be back until August 11. However, everything should run smoothly with and holding things down until I return. Have a little patience with them as this site can be a bit of a hectic whirlwind at times, and they still have other jobs to do. It's been a wild first half of the year. After very little travel in Jan/Feb, the rest of the year has been a bunch of travel, including most of May and June being on the road. With coaching responsibilities for two teams from Jan-Apr, I am ready for a break. No...
info_outlineAt an event recently, I had a chat with someone after one of my sessions. I had been speaking on DevOps and ways to better structure your team and build software. After the session, one person asked me if I'd read The Mythical Man Month and if I felt we'd gotten a lot better at building software since that book was published.
I do think we have gotten better, way better, in fact. I caught another review of the book a while back from the Pragmatic Engineer. That view looked at what's changed in 50 years since the first edition, as well as contrasting the world today. You have to subscribe to read that one, but I'll give you a few thoughts from me on the book itself and the review.
Read the rest of Reflecting on the Mythical Man Month