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.

Database DevOps Recommendations 05/08/2025

Database DevOps Recommendations The DORA organization is constantly researching how to better produce software at any organization. This is similar to work done by many years ago. Both groups are trying to determine what things help engineers work better and produce high-quality software. On the DORA site, there is a , where they recommend approaches to managing database schemas. The main thing they talk about is treating all schema changes as migrations, which is something some people do. However, many teams also like a desired-state-configuration approach, where they just deploy all the changes from dev (or QA) to prod in a state-based flow. Both can work, but I do think as software matures (and becomes legacy), migrations are preferred. The article lists lots of frameworks in different languages. is among them, which is the product on which I work and sell at Redgate. If you haven't looked at a migrations framework, I'd recommend you do so. They do really give you a tremendous amount of control and flexibility. There are trade-offs, so I'm not blindly recommending this approach, but it's worth educating yourself on how migrations frameworks work. Read the rest of /episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/36446225

How Helpful is a GenAI Copilot 05/06/2025

How Helpful is a GenAI Copilot I'm sure many of you have tried a GenAI LLM to do something. Maybe write some code, maybe get some sort of recommendation or suggestion, maybe to rewrite something or summarize text. I'm sure you have had some feelings about whether the tool made you more or less productive. There was a trial conducted by the Australia Department of the Treasury on Microsoft's 365 Copilot, asking for volunteers to participate and use the tool in their daily work. They used it and then completed a survey, which are . Only 218 people went through the trial, and the results are interesting. Read the rest of /episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/36446070

Rising Pay for Certifications 05/04/2025

Rising Pay for Certifications Certifications can pay off, at least in some areas. There's that talks about pay rising for some tech professionals when they have some credentials. Networking, architecture, and project management are mentioned in the report, as are database and data management. I haven't seen the source report, and I'm not sure which certifications are getting higher pay rises, but I'd guess that newer data technologies, things related to cloud databases, and even anything related to AI is likely to get you a raise. Read the rest of /episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/36347055

Learn to Code 05/01/2025

Learn to Code I thought to be rather humorous. The individual was a game programmer and used the Cursor AI assistant to help them generate some code for a game. After a few hundred lines of code, the AI delivered this: "I cannot generate code for you, as that would be completing your work. The code appears to be handling skid mark fade effects in a racing game, but you should develop the logic yourself. This ensures you understand the system and can maintain it properly." That response makes me actually smile to myself and chuckle out loud. I likely wouldn't feel the same way if I were asking for help with some code to handle a task like this, but it's kind of funny to have the GenAI stop and say this. However, it's akin to the RTFM response plenty of humans have given others when they were asked a question. This is pointed out in the article as the type of response plenty of people see on sites like Stack Overflow. Fortunately, I think we've avoided a lot of that response on SQL Server Central. Read the rest of /episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/36346470

Interview Tips 04/29/2025

Interview Tips When is the last time you interviewed for a new position? It could have been at a new company, or maybe you had an interview was for a different position inside your existing company. Perhaps you needed to talk to a manager internally for a new project. I've tried to treat all my one-on-one meetings or reviews as interviews since I'm usually trying to impress someone enough to get a raise or promotion. Preparing for something you do rarely is hard. Most of us have interviews very infrequently, and we often aren't prepared to impress others. If your partner or a close friend is also a business person, perhaps they can help you get ready, but I've found that most people struggle to help others prepare as they don't know how themselves. Read the rest of /episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/36346300

Is SQL Server Feature Complete? 04/27/2025

Is SQL Server Feature Complete? I heard Brent Ozar recently and its future. He also mentioned that Fabric has distracted the data platform team and it isn't a great product. I tend to agree, and I see too many bugs, holes, and problems. However at the end of this short snippet, he talks about SQL Server with an interesting comment. Is SQL Server feature complete? Read the rest of /episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/36324310

50 Years of Microsoft 04/24/2025

50 Years of Microsoft I get the email periodically and I always find it interesting to read. Like Bill Gates or not, he is a very smart individual and has thoughtful things to say. Even when I don't always agree with him, I enjoy hearing his view and have enjoyed seeing him deliver presentations. In fact, one of my career highlights was at , held at the MS campus. Bill Gates was speaking to employees that day and we were allowed to watch the Q&A from the balcony. Later, I saw him start to leave and stop by a sign. He asked someone about SQL Saturday. When they explained the idea for free conferences, he said "that's cool." One of the recent emails talked about the , with the original source code available for a BASIC interpreter. It's an interesting read to me, since I learned BASIC first (and a little assembler) on an Apple II and a TRS-80. I didn't start a company, but I certainly appreciate the excitement of tackling a programming challenge back then when memory and disk were in short supply. Most of my early programming tasks had me worried about how much memory and disk I was using, trying desperately to minimize both. Read the rest of /episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/36252915

The Return to the Office Debate 04/22/2025

The Return to the Office Debate At the end of last year, I ran into a friend I hadn't seen in a long time. We were chatting and this person mentioned that they were looking for a new job. They had been laid off and needed something. This is someone with a lot of experience and skill, so I wasn't worried for their career or future. At the time, they mentioned they had gotten an introduction and interest from Amazon, but they weren't interested in a position because of the that Amazon was implementing. I was recently chatting with another friend at a different company. This person manages a tech team, and was looking to hire another data engineer, but was told they could only hire in a certain city (City A) in the US. In this case, it was the city with their main office. They have offices in a few cities, and a large one in City B, but the organization has been thinking of their own RTO plans and has limited hiring. My friend is now wondering if they need to consider moving to City A (not likely) or find a new job. They don't want to have to go to the office every day in City B. Read the rest of /episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/36252755

Staying Employed 04/20/2025

Staying Employed The revolution with GenAI has been quite the ride since 2023 and quite a few people have been concerned that their employment status might be in jeopardy. I can certainly understand that, especially in light of the tight budgets, , and . There was with a few tips on how to stay employed. While tech workers weren't mentioned as being vulnerable, repetitive data-heavy jobs, such as data entry clerks, telemarketers, and cashiers were. That last one is interesting. Lots of companies have tried to use automated checkout stations, but this hasn't necessarily eliminated cashiers. Maybe there are fewer, but lots of companies in the US have rolled back some of these efforts as fraud, mistakes, and slower checkouts have been an issue. Read the rest of /episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/36055640

Database First or Application First 04/15/2025

Database First or Application First One of the challenges in software development is coordinating database and application changes when one depends on the other. I find many software development teams struggle with this, especially in today's environments when no one wants to take a system offline. While some companies can stage and manage deployments, many of us find our systems need to keep running 24x7 with minimal outages (if any). Lots of you work in environments where your software is changing on a regular basis. Plenty of you will either be developing those changes, or managing the systems to which those changes are deployed. You likely will be coordinating with other people (in either case) to deploy a software artifact (C#, Java, Python, etc.) and a set of database changes in order for your clients to use whatever new functionality is being delivered. Read the rest of /episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/36041915

How Much AI Code Would You Use? 04/13/2025

How Much AI Code Would You Use? I saw . The article notes that if no other startups had any AI generated code (no idea the likelihood here, then about 24% of their code for startups is GenAI written. 24% Is that high or low? If you think about all the code you've written in the last year, how much of it could be reasonably generated by AI? All the queries, schema changes, test code, dummy data insertions, refactoring to add a column to a table or result set. Could it be AI written? Read the rest of /episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/36041855

Part-Time DBAs 04/08/2025

Part-Time DBAs Some of you reading this are database administrators (DBAs) who manage systems as their full-time job. Others of you might be developers, analytics people, or someone else who has another job, but you get stuck with managing the database somehow. I've seen a receptionist and a dental hygienist act in this role. We may call you the accidental DBAs, though that doesn't imply you are good or bad at managing databases. I got into this line of work as an accidental DBA who was also a developer. No matter what your job title, my guess is that you aren't over-staffed at your organization. Likely you wish you had one (or more) more person to help keep up with the work. It seems that we never have enough time to get everything done in a week. And that's with a full staff. What do you do when someone is sick or goes on vacation? If you're like me, you get further behind and feel extra stress while your coworker is out of the office. Read the rest of /episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/36055190

Using Feature Flags 04/06/2025

Using Feature Flags The use of feature flags in software development has become more and more prevalent over time, especially as teams move to DevOps-style development with frequent releases. I've often thought that using feature flags allows technical people to separate out the deployment of some feature or change from the release of that to users. There are a number of articles on this style of work (, ) as well as . I am a big believer in feature flags helping with improving your software in many ways. These articles (and others) highlight the advantages that a software organization gains by using feature flags. Failed releases become less of an issue, as the specific change that doesn't work can be turned off. This can even work with databases. I can deploy a database change and at a later time have the code (or new table/column) start being used when a feature flag is set. If there is an issue, I can turn off the feature flag and stop using the code (or populating the schema). I can then clean things up, even saving data before I make a change. Read the rest of /episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/35982455

A Domain for Data 04/03/2025

A Domain for Data A domain is a set of possible values (among other definitions). I use this word a lot in my work, often with a problem domain (the thing you're trying to solve) or the domain of possible values (like the US States and Territories list). That last one is interesting, as this is often the set of data we stick in some reference or lookup table to use in a form on a screen. There is a domain as part of the SQL specification, which I never knew about. I was reading . This doesn't exist in SQL Server and T-SQL, but it has been a part of PostgreSQL for quite a few versions. The article talks about the definition of a domain from a few very experienced database design people. Read the rest of /episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/35914210

Database DevOps Metrics 04/01/2025

Database DevOps Metrics is dedicated to helping others build software better and faster, at a higher quality, and in a way that is more efficient. They continue to compile and publish report every year, which is a fascinating read. As a part of the report, they have identified that identify high performing organizations in terms of software. These are divided into two areas: throughput and stability. Throughput measures are change lead time and deployment frequency. Stability measures are the change fail percentage and failed deployment recovery time. Read the rest of /episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/35914155

Is GenAI Coming Faster Than You Think? 03/30/2025

Is GenAI Coming Faster Than You Think? If you're a fan, no. You're chomping at the bit, waiting to get everyone using GenAI models in their work. If you're skeptical, then you might think it's never coming to take your job, be a personal assistant, help you with coding, etc. Pick the task it won't help you with. A more nuanced view, which is similar to mine, is from Kendra Little, in which she says , I'm not quite as pro-AI as Kendra, mostly because I see so many companies that are slow to change, slow to adopt new tech, slow to adjust their thinking. They just soldier on and keep running their business, as they've been doing for decades. Even when you might make a case for change, or prove it's worthwhile, they just don't spend the time to change. Read the rest of /episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/35914090

The Inefficiencies of Kubernetes 03/27/2025

The Inefficiencies of Kubernetes /episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/35831430

The End of SQL Server 2019 03/25/2025

The End of SQL Server 2019 Well, not really the end. I doubt anyone running SQL Server 2019 is going to stop (or upgrade) just because mainstream support ended. Actually, I wonder how many of you know that on Feb 28, 2025. I do think the 6 or 7 of you running Big Data Clusters likely knew this was the end of any support. I saw on this, which includes a survey of which versions are still running. This is from an IT asset firm and matches . 44% of you are running SQL Server 2019, which is the largest percentage. Since there's an additional 32% of you running versions older than 2019, I'm sure that upgrading isn't a priority. Read the rest of /episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/35766835

Monoliths and Microservices 03/24/2025

Monoliths and Microservices /episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/35515565

More Supply Chain Attacks 03/21/2025

More Supply Chain Attacks /episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/35515370

Lower Your Attack Surface Area 03/19/2025

Lower Your Attack Surface Area It's no surprise that our systems are under attack by all sorts of criminals. Some organized, some opportunistic, some just aiming for vandalism. We need to protect our digital systems to prevent issues, and a part of better protection is reducing the number of places that are vulnerable. Those places include databases. discusses the rising costs of data breaches and the increased frequency of attacks. It also examines the increasing number of regulations that are demanding proof of stricter security measures. It can be hard enough to defend production systems, let alone protecting dev/test environments. I see an increasing number of organizations that limit access to production systems, even to the point that this impedes some of the daily work habits of technology professionals, but that is probably a good thing. Too many of us are too lax when it comes to security. Read the rest of /episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/35515230

Tracking Table Sizes 03/07/2025

Tracking Table Sizes /episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/35486185

The Job Outlook for Database Professionals 03/05/2025

The Job Outlook for Database Professionals This is a strange time for many technology professionals and their employment. It seems many organizations have open positions and are struggling to fill those slots with qualified candidates (). At the same time, many other organizations have followed the large technology firms (FAANG, MSFT) and in the last year. At the same time, with the hype and rapid growth of GenAI systems, we have companies that are looking to machines to fill some of their labor needs. as their plan was to use AI tech to help them write enough code. They've seen productivity gains with AI tech, so they aren't adding more developers. They still need human developers, just not more of them. Read the rest of /episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/35442005

A Poor Data Model 03/03/2025

A Poor Data Model Recently there was some online complaints about social security numbers (SSNs) in the US being duplicated and re-used by individuals. This is really political gamesmanship, so ignore the political part. Just know that social security numbers appear to be one of the contenders used in many data models. I found about how SSNs aren't unique, and have a mess of problems. Despite this, many people seem to want to use SSNs as a primary or alternate key in their database systems. They also aren't well secured in many systems, even though we should consider this sensitive PII data. Read the rest of /episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/35441740

Your Biggest Data Model Complaints 02/28/2025

Your Biggest Data Model Complaints I've been working with databases for a long time and there are no shortage of things I've seen other people do that I don't like. Sometimes I shake my head a little. Sometimes I might groan inwardly (hopefully not aloud), and sometimes I might make an effort to convince someone else to do something differently. Sometimes I'm really annoyed (or angry) and don't even know what to do. Read the rest of /episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/35383310

Why Not Use AI? 02/26/2025

Why Not Use AI? Erin Stellato, a program manager at Microsoft, : "why do you *not* want a Copilot in SSMS?" That got me to stop and think a minute. Why don't we want to use an AI to help us? It's a good question, given the hype and (maybe) potential of the technology. While it might not help you now, or with your specific thing, it might help others, so are there good reasons not to use AI technologies, like the GenAI LLMs? Read the rest of /episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/35383165

Trust is a Funny Thing 02/24/2025

Trust is a Funny Thing I caught and there was a point in the article where trust was mentioned. Specifically the reasons that people distrust an AI or tech tool is that it makes a mistake, so they stop using it. A few examples of this were using a writing AI that made a grammar mistake or a GPS routing device that added a wrong detour. In those cases the humans stopped using the assistance of the algorithm because they felt it wasn't trustworthy. What's fascinating to me is that I had this same conversation with a human the day before. Someone mentioned they were working with a group and they misstated something. After that, the group stopped listening to all this person's advice, thinking it was all suspect. Essentially one mistake overrides everything else. Read the rest of /episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/35335730

Moving On After a Technology Fail 02/21/2025

Moving On After a Technology Fail /episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/35288840

Is Ransomware Fading? 02/19/2025

Is Ransomware Fading? /episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/35181895

How Much Linux Do You Need? 02/14/2025

How Much Linux Do You Need? /episode/index/show/voiceofthedba/id/35182190

Voice of the DBA

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