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.
info_outline
Your Value from a Conference
12/19/2025
Your Value from a Conference
The PASS Data Community Summit 2025 was held in Seattle last month, and it was an interesting event for me. I wrote a , but a few things stood out. The event was a little smaller, with over 50% first-time attendees, but seemed to be a bit more vibrant. Perhaps people coming for the first time added something that I hadn't expected. I was a bit over-committed, so I didn't spend a lot of time in the public spaces, but things felt a little different the few times I was in the expo hall or the hallway track. I ran across on the value of conferences, and it got me thinking. What is the value that you get from attending a conference (or an event). If your employer pays you might feel that you should bring some value back to them when you return. That's the premise of the thread, and I know there are plenty of people that feel that way. However. Should you value your time and effort any less? Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/39229105
info_outline
The Challenge of AI
12/17/2025
The Challenge of AI
In his book, , the CEO of Microsoft AI laid out the risks of AI tech bluntly. “These tools will only temporarily augment human intelligence. They will make us smarter and more efficient for a time, and will unlock enormous amounts of economic growth, but they are fundamentally labor-replacing,” he wrote. Suleyman advocated for regulatory oversight and other government interventions, such as new taxes on autonomous systems and a universal basic income to prevent a socioeconomic collapse. This book was published before Suleyman joined Microsoft. Satya Nadella is more optimistic than his new deputy. In an interview at Microsoft headquarters, while sitting next to his human chief of staff, Nadella said that his Copilot assistants wouldn't replace his human assistant. As his chief of staff sat typing notes of the conversation on her tablet, Nadella acknowledged that AI will cause “hard displacement and changes in labor pools,” including for Microsoft. Judson Althoff, Chief Commercial Officer, said that Nadella was pressuring his team to find ways to use AI to increase revenue without adding headcount. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/39362210
info_outline
Refactoring SQL Code
12/12/2025
Refactoring SQL Code
One of the things I see software developers often talking about is how they refactor code. As they touch a class, method, etc., they may take the time to refactor the code to make it cleaner, perform better, or just add some documentation. It seems that a regular part of a software developer's job is refactoring code in the codebase. That is unless they see a "don't touch this, no idea how it works" comment. There are plenty of those, and often everyone leaves that code alone. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/39345830
info_outline
Investing for AI
12/10/2025
Investing for AI
The GenAI boom is growing like crazy. From hype to disasters to successes to investment to the embedding of GenAI tech into lots of products, it seems no one gets away from AI. My wife, kids, friends, they all talk about AI and alternately give me stories of huge successes or epic failures. Even those who just scroll through reels aren't immune as we see amazing things, but we can't trust them because of AI. Who knows what image/video/audio was actually recorded and what was generated. Like many of you, I think AI can be amazing. Like more of you, I think it can be a really poor partner and it produces output I can't trust. I think one of the major challenges is learning to treat an AI like a colleague whose work quality is erratic. It's not that I can't work with them and use their work, but I need to test, validate, and verify the code they give me does what I need, at some acceptable quality level. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/39285255
info_outline
Your Security Checkup
12/08/2025
Your Security Checkup
Recently I saw an article on Simple Talk, , and I thought that many of these are fairly simple things. Turn off unused features, disable sa, etc. These are things that a lot of people probably ensure are in their SQL Servers builds. Though, I'm sure a lot of people don't bother. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/39280625
info_outline
How Important Are Real Time Decisions?
12/05/2025
How Important Are Real Time Decisions?
Imagine a perfect world? I have an AI agent that knows my business well. It's getting real time input from sales, from customers, it makes amazing decisions. We get a large order? We need to ramp up production of our widgets. We have an order pipeline of xx widgets and we know over time that yy% will close. Let's place a larger order with a supplier overseas. The next day, we have an election and tariffs are announced on imported parts. We react immediately, cancel the order, start the process to expand a local factory. We place ads to hire workers and order equipment. Things are looking good for our business and our factory will be up and running in a few months. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/39228950
info_outline
SQL Server Licensing is Simple
12/03/2025
SQL Server Licensing is Simple
Over the years I've had no shortage of licensing questions for SQL Server. At times it's felt a little crazy. Look at the . Choose EE or SE and the number of cores. Then check if you're using VMs. Oh, and consider the cloud, and which cloud you're running a workload on. It's simple right? It can seem confusing, and at times I've wished Microsoft would make it simpler. And perhaps even give us some add-ons, like adding some additional hardware capabilities (cough more RAM *cough) in SE. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/39228815
info_outline
Don't Let Corner Cases Drive Your Design
12/01/2025
Don't Let Corner Cases Drive Your Design
If you graph computer/query cost against the size of data, you can get four quadrants: small data, small compute (most CRUD app queries) small data, big compute (complex BI queries for this quarter, most reporting) big data, small compute (logs, audit data) big data, big compute (complex BI queries across all our data) Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/39158870
info_outline
What's Your Theme Music?
11/28/2025
What's Your Theme Music?
A few weeks ago, I was at the in San Francisco. I attended the inaugural event last year and decided to go back again. It's a great chance to hear people thinking about data and its impact on the world in a different way, recognizing that building lager and larger systems isn't always possible. Or a good idea. We might find that smaller systems fit well, especially smaller datasets, which can both serve our purposes and create agility. The of the conference says that "We champion the power of Small Data and smart AI, believing that less is truly more." There's a bit more, but that's the idea. The format for the conference is a little different, with 3-5 talks in a row, all on one stage, each about 25 minutes long. These are talks with or without slides, but no live demos, just speaking and expressing a point of view. What I found fun was that each person picked their own music to play as they walked onto stage (or ran/danced in the case of from ). It was a bit of fun, with the DJ letting the music play as the person made their way to the front and were welcomed by the audience. I heard rock, metal, hip hop, and more. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/38984765
info_outline
Done is Better than Good
11/26/2025
Done is Better than Good
Mary Spender is a musician in the UK who I follow and hope to see live one day. She works hard producing content about music, that business, and, of course, songs. Recently she had where talked about creative time and focus. In it she referenced Elizabeth Gilbert saying "done is better than good." My initial reaction was "that's right." Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/39158795
info_outline
Is Data Modeling Common?
11/24/2025
Is Data Modeling Common?
Recently, I had a few questions on database modeling. One was posted in the , and a customer asked about ERD tooling on the same day. This came shortly after Redgate acquired Vertabelo (now ). This stood out to me as very rarely in the last few years have I found people consulting and updating a diagram while performing database development. When I started as a developer and needed to update a database, I had to first update a diagram that was stored in ErWin. We had a dedicated computer (back when we went to an office every day) where the software was run and any developer could us this to update the diagram with proposed changes. Back then, we had to get another peer to sign off on changes before making them, and the peer was supposed to go check the diagram for the change before approving it. That's only if they thought your change made sense and conformed to our standards (naming, design, etc.). Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/39041835
info_outline
An Unexciting Exciting Release
11/21/2025
An Unexciting Exciting Release
SQL Server 2025 was released this week. The announcement came at Ignite and the PASS Data Community Summit with keynotes on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively. While there are some things to look forward to in the release (What's New) and some highlights from T-SQL Tuesday this week, it seems that this release wasn't a very exciting one. On one hand, I blame all the Microsoft Fabric focus, which seems to distract from the core product that powers the databases at many organizations. The has had relatively few posts this year, highlighting a few things. The gets more posts, which is something I've seen at Database Weekly as well. As I curate the content during my week, I find a lot more Fabric-focused content than SQL Server-specific posts. That contributes to a lack of excitement for a new version of SQL Server. Read the reset of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/39041775
info_outline
Don't Create Workslop
11/17/2025
Don't Create Workslop
I remember a time before email. Some of my first jobs were mostly based on paper being moved from person to person. I'm sure some of you remember being used to communicate between individuals in an organization. I used those to send and get memorandums from others before we implemented email. Fortunately, our email implementation () came soon after I started working in corporations. Initially, people treated email much like paper mail inside organizations. However, over time, people started to treat email differently. It was easy to send an email around other work, so people started to send more messages than they ever would have with paper. They started to dash off notes quickly, sometimes too quickly, as an email might be followed by another email that includes a "I forgot this". As instant messaging grew, we saw similar patterns where people were quick to send messages, regardless of whether they were important, well-thought-out, or even necessary. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/38984620
info_outline
Being Mindful of Design Time
11/14/2025
Being Mindful of Design Time
Over the last few years, I've worked a lot with various customers on finding better ways to build database software, often using the principles of DevOps to drive the change. A lot of managers and leads want to see a smoother process to help their teams become more efficient. DBAs often want less overhead and friction in the process, while developers just want to deliver code. In many cases, however, what lots of management wants is speed, and they're looking for ways to increase their current speed and deliver more software. Their current rate of development might be quick enough if you can reduce your bottlenecks. Making communication easier, limiting the slowdowns from handoffs, and reducing the risk of mistakes are everyone's goals. However. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/38984475
info_outline
Internal Staff Growth
11/12/2025
Internal Staff Growth
Imagine that you are about to tackle a new project that will take more than a year. This might be a new system, perhaps a cloud migration, or maybe it's rewriting something that doesn't work well. You don't have enough employees to undertake the project without overloading everyone. Your team needs to grow. Would you rather hire a more senior person from outside the organization or pick a junior person that's already inside your company and teach them what they need to know? Think about this as if you were the one making the decision about the future direction of your software team. Philosophically, do you want to buy experienced people or train/build new ones from your internal staff. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/38910715
info_outline
Do You Really Need HA?
11/10/2025
Do You Really Need HA?
I ran across a thought-provoking post from Chrissy LeMaire asking if . The post actually asks if you've considered not using it. The default from Chrissy, for most installations, is to use standalone SQL Servers. This isn't to say she's against HA solutions (FCIs or AGs), but that they often cause problems and might not be needed. It's an interesting position to consider. For a long time, I avoided SQL Server clusters as they were hard to setup with a lot of complexity, hardware requirements, etc., and didn't really provide enough benefits over using log shipping with a second server for me. These days I have clients with mostly AGs, and they seem to run fine. That being said, Chrissy notes that after she left a job, a network outages caused a bunch of downtime. I could see there being downtime, as the old database mirroring (and the it-will-never-die replication) needed a working network. If you have network issues, you better know how to manage your HA technology's issues. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/38910570
info_outline
Poor Name Choice
11/07/2025
Poor Name Choice
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 consistent names that might be used in scripts. If I always want developers pulling the latest item, I might use latest. However, if versions are important, than "latest" or "current" might not be the best choice. Much of the time, I tend to try and get a version or some other specific indicator in a name. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/38910365
info_outline
Data > Hype
11/04/2025
Data > Hype
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 not sure anyone other than a trained software engineer can do that well. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/38760915
info_outline
Practice Until You Don't Get It Wrong
11/02/2025
Practice Until You Don't Get It Wrong
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 could be that one who has been there a long time followed a poorly documented procedure for the first time, or applied the procedure to the wrong situation. Often, I find these are relatively simple mistakes because someone isn't as familiar with a protocol or skill as another person assumed they were. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/38760825
info_outline
The Selfish Case for Learning AI
10/30/2025
The Selfish Case for Learning AI
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
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/38760690
info_outline
Reducing Cloud Cost
10/28/2025
Reducing Cloud Cost
. 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 purchase. Partially because we've also often lost some control over budgeting with the move to OpEx and subscription things. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/38598865
info_outline
DevOps is DevOps
10/26/2025
DevOps is DevOps
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
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/38598745
info_outline
Can/Can't Do/Don't
10/23/2025
Can/Can't Do/Don't
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
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/38598505
info_outline
Be Wary of Data
10/21/2025
Be Wary of Data
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 pages. This felt like a chore, and I started to just randomly click some of the selections asking me to rate things 1-10. I wasn't really rating the items; I was trying to get done. Eventually, I bailed on the survey and didn't complete it, but that got me thinking about the data from these surveys. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/38597725
info_outline
The Journey to PostgreSQL (or anything)
10/16/2025
The Journey to PostgreSQL (or anything)
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 good idea. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/38569045
info_outline
We Should Demand Better
10/14/2025
We Should Demand Better
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 collaboratively to prevent abuse of connected systems. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/38568935
info_outline
The Improvement Limit
10/12/2025
The Improvement Limit
I caught a that had this quote: "Many people do not believe this is true. If there isn't a fire to put out, then you are not doing a good job." He included a repost from Shaik Ashraf with that quote and an image that explains better what things a DBA is doing because they aren't always busy. I would say that by busy we think of a DBA as rushed and always trying to fix something that isn't working well. I've certainly walked into operational positions where this was the case. Things weren't working smoothly or breaking regularly. My phone was always ringing, as I moved from crisis to crisis. For some systems, rebooting them regularly was the fix, not because I didn't want to determine a root cause and fix them, but because I had too many other priorities. A reboot at least recompiled plans, cleared caches, and got the system working for a few days. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/38346295
info_outline
Cleaning Up the Cloud
10/02/2025
Cleaning Up the Cloud
Recently, I got a bill from Azure. That's not an unusual thing for many of you, but for me it was a surprise because it said I was late paying. I've had a number of services running, and I thought at first that I had left something running too long, like a VM. As I checked, most of the things were paused, even the expensive ones like a Synapse workspace. Instead, I found that my free credits were not being applied. Fortunately, I had changed credit cards or I might have been billed for a few months before I noticed. This was a change in how Microsoft managed benefits, which is fine. I opened a support call and someone helped me, but it took several days to get a response. I was slightly worried about the bills, so I decided to audit the things I had running. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/38346035
info_outline
PRs Are Like Trouble Tickets
09/30/2025
PRs Are Like Trouble Tickets
I've spent quite a bit of my career as a DBA/sysadmin/Operations person. However, I've had my share of development positions as well. As I work with customers who look to mature their database development to be more like other software development, I've noticed that PRs sometimes don't get handled as smoothly as we might like. In some sense, they are like help desk trouble tickets that never get closed. One of the first things I caution people about is specifying specific reviewers, especially DBAs. There are often DBAs who are the gatekeepers for code, but if we require them to be the only ones to review code before a CI or test process, we really slow things down. This often happens in smaller environments where one DBA wants to avoid anything impacting their job. They want to review everything before it commits. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/38346160
info_outline
Chosing an AI Model in Sept 2025
09/28/2025
Chosing an AI Model in Sept 2025
Some of you out there are positive about AI and looking to use them. Some of you aren't too thrilled with the tools and might avoid using them. I think that not learning to harness the power of an AI is a mistake. This technology is going to change the world in many ways and you need to learn how it can help you. You also should learn where the sharp edges are as there are some very, very sharp edges. Read the rest of
/episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/38314335