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August 2008 - Posts
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Over the last two days I have been focusing on finalising my Tech-Ed presentations for New Zealand and Australia. In order to ensure that I was not distracted I turned off all interruptions. Everything from e-mail to instant messenger and even my cell phone were turned off so that there were no external distractions at all. To be perfectly honest the last two days have been the most productive days that I have had for a long time. I know that much of my day can be spent sitting in Outlook, meaning that by the end of the day I feel like I have achieved nothing more that add a dozen or more tasks to my To Do list. The last two days have been a liberating experience; I have felt that by cutting the umbilical cord to my inbox I have achieved so much. Looking at the number of unread messages I now have, though, has taken the shine off breaking free.
I sometimes think that e-mail is more of a distraction then a productivity tool. I am a big fan of picking up the phone and calling someone. Often a phone call will only take a few minutes whereas an e-mail conversation can take numerous e-mails to archive the same result. Do you think that e-mail is productivity tool or just another distraction we can often do without?
- Peter Ward
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The duties of a database administrator vary greatly between each organisation; however, the core role of a DBA is to ensure the recoverability and integrity of the data that they manage. The days of a DBA doing nothing but performing re-indexing operations and checking for corruptions is long gone. Over the last 12 years since SQL Server 6.5 was released, the manageability of SQL Server has improved dramatically, meaning that issues with integrity are few and far between. As a result a modern DBA has evolved into a skilled professional that works on various projects in an IS team.
A modern DBA is a cross between a developer and a system administrator. Hence, many organisations no longer have a full-time DBA on their team. Often the role of a DBA is filled by a senior developer or a system administrator. In the past a DBA would focus on the database as a whole, understanding what causes performance problems, whereas people that often only look after SQL Server on a part-time basis try to solve performance issues with hardware. Their justification is that hardware is cheap. They can purchase a new server with dual processors and 8GB of RAM for often cheaper than it would cost to engage a SQL Server consultant. Do you think that cheap hardware means that the role of a SQL Server database administrator is becoming redundant?
- Peter Ward
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Most organisations are aware of the need to ensure that the latest patches and Service Packs are installed on the systems in their environment. Network and system administrators are aware that each month Patch Tuesday means that there will be another round of patches that need to be deployed to each of the servers that they manage. As with the staff members that look after the server environment, Database Administrators are aware of the need to apply Service Packs when they are released. However, there are two very distinct thoughts when it comes to applying SQL Server cumulative updates. There are those that apply them and then there are those whose SQL Server build is still SQL Server 2005 SP2 with GDR2.
There has been talk that Service Packs for SQL Server will be replaced by the scheduled release of cumulative updates; however, public opinion has somewhat changed this with the planned release of Service Pack 3 for SQL Server 2005. One of the tenants of the Trustworthy Computing initiative is communication. That is, communication regarding the availability of patches and the process to deploy the patches. One area that is clearly lacking for SQL Server is clear guidance on whether cumulative updates should be deployed or not. Do you install the latest cumulative updates or are you waiting for Service Pack 3?
- Peter Ward
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Next week I am presenting two sessions at Tech.Ed New Zealand in Auckland and one session at Tech.Ed Australia in Sydney. One of the sessions I am presenting in New Zealand is a SQL Server 2008 Security Deep Dive. As a result, over the last week or two I have taken an in-depth look at the new Audit feature in SQL Server 2008. This is a feature that has been lacking from SQL Server and required the use of various techniques in order to ensure compliance with regulations such as HIPAA and SOX.
Auditing is an interesting topic as it is primarily a mechanism that is designed to identify who is looking at and modifying data. In most organizations the database security is such that most users can only access data through an application interface and the functionality that is provided by the application. For example, if the application does not display the remuneration column in the employees table than users have no way to identify what their boss is being paid. But typically, Database Administrators are members of the sysadmin fixed server role, meaning that they control the SQL Server instance. Which begs the question—how do you ensure that you can trust your Database Administrator, especially if the role is provided by a third-party external to the organization?
- Peter Ward
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Something that infuriates me is the Digital Rights Management that is used to protect various forms of media such as music and videos. My wife and I are fans of the television series River Cottage, mainly because I think that one day we would like to run away from it all to a small farm in the country. Unfortunately, the DVD series is not available in Australia so the first thing I tried to do was go online to purchase the individual episodes. I could have ordered the series DVD but rather than wait for the DVD to be shipped to Australia I thought I would download the episodes and burn them to DVD. This is when the fun really began.
When I tried to purchase the episodes I was advised that I could not purchase them, as I did not live in North America. No problem, I have a U.S. postal address so I used this address instead of my home address and I was able to purchase all of the episodes. I then needed to download a client application so that I could download each of the episodes. When the application started it detected that my IP address was not in North America so I was unable to download the episodes. Not one to be easily defeated I knew I would be in the U.S. in two weeks so downloaded each of the episodes while I was there. Over the weekend I had some free time so I decided to burn each of the episodes to DVD only to find that DRM only allowed the episodes to be watched on the computer where they were downloaded. I am sure many of you have similar stories of frustration with DRM. I understand that there is a need to protect media from piracy but I think that these hurdles increase piracy rather than decrease it. After this experience I am sure many people would look for a torrent site next time rather than purchase content online. Why not watermark media purchased online with the credit card details of the person that purchased it? That would certainly prevent it being distributed and remove the need for DRM.
- Peter Ward
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As IT professionals I think that the majority of us are aware of the health of our IT infrastructure. We have proactive monitoring in place to alert us when something is not quite right so we can do something to address the situation. For example, we monitor free disk space so that when there is less than 20% free space we are alerted so we have an opportunity to allocate additional space before it becomes a problem. Although we ensure that we monitor the health of our servers, I think that often we overlook our own personal health.
I have come to the end of three very longs weeks. For two of these weeks I have been on the road and with several plane flights this week I will be glad not to see another airport until next week. As a result I have developed a head cold and my body is getting close to shutting down. Although it would be nice to be alerted when I am getting close to being sick, I think that a lot of this is my own doing as a result of a lack of exercise and a healthy diet while travelling. I have come across a couple of companies of late that encourage a healthy lifestyle for their employees by supplying free gym memberships. What are you or your workplace doing to ensure that your servers are not healthier than you are?
- Peter Ward
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With the release of SQL Server 2008, it appears that SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 3 has fallen off the radar for many people. I have to admit that I have not installed SQL Server 2005 for a few weeks. This morning I was working with a customer designing a deployment for a new ERP system; the vendor does not yet support SQL Server 2008 so the install will be performed on SQL Server 2005. I was documenting the build process and could not remember the build number for Cumulative Update 8 for SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2. When I went searching online I found that Cumulative Update 9 is now available.
SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 was released on 19 February 2007, which is over one and a half years ago. Although it has been announced that SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 3 will be released before the end of 2008 it does not seem to be soon enough for many people. The Connect item for SP3 continues to get several comments each day supporting the release of SP3. Do you think that Microsoft is doing enough to release Service Pack 3 for SQL Server 2005?
- Peter Ward
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From talking to a number of DBAs since SQL Server 2008 was released a fortnight ago, many people have not even started to think about this new version. I would say that over 60% of database administrators and developers I have spoken to have not even looked at any of the pre-release versions let alone the RTM for SQL Server 2008. Many organizations have the "Service Pack 1" mentality—that is they will not install a product until Service Pack 1 has been released. As a result many database professional will not look at SQL Server 2008 until the development of the next version of SQL Server is well and truly underway.
Even if you are not starting to think about SQL Server 2008, many people are already starting to think about version 11 of SQL Server. There are a number of blog posts that have started to pop up in the last few weeks with people's wish list for the next version of SQL Server. If you have had an opportunity to look at SQL Server 2008 then I would love to know which feature you would like to see in the next version.
- Peter Ward
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In the workplace it is common for the facilities management team to conduct mock evacuations of a building. In some parts of the world it is even mandatory that an evacuation drill occur on a regularly scheduled basis. The point of these drills is to ensure that everybody knows the process to evacuate a building in the event of an emergency and to measure how quickly the building can be emptied.
When was the last time that you performed a recovery drill for your SQL Server environment to ensure you could recover from a disaster? Just like an evacuation drill, a recovery drill allows you to streamline the efficiency of being able to deal with an emergency. Very rarely will an emergency occur in the middle of the day after you have had a chance to have you morning coffee. From experience, issues will more often than not happen in the early hours of the morning. I used to work with an organization where mock recovery exercises were turned into a friendly rivalry. One DBA would simulate a situation such as a corrupt database and another DBA would need to identify and resolve the situation. If the DBA performing the recovery was unable to resolve the issue he needed to buy the first round of drinks at the pub. How does your organization ensure that each DBA knows what to do in the event of an emergency?
- Peter Ward
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I don't know about you, but it often seems that the database is always blamed no matter what the problem is. I was staying in a hotel last week and wanted to contact a guest that was staying in the same hotel. I could remember the guest's first name; however, I did not know the correct spelling of their surname as I had only just met them. When I asked at the front desk they told me that they could only search by surname and it had to be the correct spelling. When I asked if it could search for surnames that started with a particular letter, they responded that "the database will not let us."
I am sure we have all come across this issue where the database is being blamed for something. The performance of the network might be slow or maybe an application is not working as it should but somehow it is the database's fault. I think the funniest story I came across was when I was analysing a trace file from an ERP application and someone asked, "So does this mean the Internet will be faster once you have fixed the database." So, what is the funniest thing that you have heard someone blaming a database for?
- Peter Ward
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August typically indicates that it is the start of the conference season. This year the second half of the year is packed full of various conferences ranging from PDC to Tech-Ed EUMA and the SQL PASS Community Summit. The problem with these conferences is that although they have great speakers and great content they can be very expensive, especially by the time you add airfares and hotel costs on top of the conference fee. As a result, many organisations will not send their staff to conferences and those that are self-employed find it hard to justify not only the cost of the conference but also the loss of income during the conference.
There has been a growing trend of late for community events to be run on weekends to allow people who are normally unable to attend conferences the ability to attend sessions from many of the same speakers who present at the larger events. In Australia, SQL Down Under Code Camp is held in October, in the U.K. SQL Bits is being held on Sept. 13 and North America has six SQL Saturday events planned already. These are just a handful of the free SQL Server events that are being held this conferences season. Which Free SQL Server events are you planning to attend?
- Peter Ward
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I met someone this week who regularly works in excess of 65 hours a week and has been working as many as 90 hours of late. The organisation that this person works for recently lost several staff and all the work has landed in this person's lap. Although they are recruiting to fill the vacant positions, I am sure that the number of hours this person works will not reduce in the short term. As it will take several months before the new recruits are up to speed with the projects that this person is juggling at the moment.
This does raise the question of what responsibility a workplace has for an employee's well being. I am no legal expert but I am sure that if an employee has a car crash while travelling home from work after a long day in the office that the workplace would be liable, as the workplace has failed to ensure a duty of care towards the employee. I know from experience that working long hours is not a healthy practice but sometimes there is no choice as the work just needs to be done. However, the flip side is that employers need to ensure that they do not have expectations that cannot be met. Do you feel that your employer sets unfair expectations and deadlines that force you to work more than 40 hours a week?
- Peter Ward
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I have been on the road for over a week now and I decided this morning that I wanted something a little different to hotel food for breakfast. I had a chat to the concierge and despite his best efforts to point me in the direction of the hotel restaurant, he finally told me about a great little cafe in St. Paul that overlooks the Mississippi river. I went in search of the cafe and unfortunately it was closed. By now my chances of finding somewhere else for breakfast before I needed to meet my exam group were rather slim. There was a little diner I passed on my way to the cafe that was selling bagels and coffee, so I thought I would see what was on offer. When I asked for a coffee the waitress responded, "Would you like large, extra large, or jumbo."
To be honest I really didn't care about the size of the coffee. I just wanted something that would help wake me up first thing in the morning. Previously, I had to make a similar decision with SQL Server 2005 Express Edition, either Express Edition or Express with Advanced Services. With the release of SQL Server 2008 Express Edition, which is now available for download, comes another choice, Express with Tools. Now I am not sure that we really need three versions of Express Edition, why not simply provide an install option to select which features should be installed?
- Peter Ward
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Whenever you get a group of experts together in a room, there is typically only one thing they can agree on: that they agree to disagree. Often this is because of different backgrounds and experiences that influence the opinion of each individual. For example, with something as simple as performing a database backup, if you had only worked with databases less than 10GB your experiences would vary greatly with someone that deals with databases that exceed 10TB. When you have a database this size you cannot simply run a BACKUP DATABASE command, you need to come up with other strategies to maintain a backup.
I consider myself to be a reasonable SQL Server expert. However, if you asked me to develop a data-mining model I would look at you as if you were talking a foreign language. The same goes if I were to ask someone who was an MDX guru to set-up a stretch cluster—he or she would look at me with that same puzzled expression. SQL Server has become such a broad product that when someone is an expert it is normally only in one particular area of the product. This specialisation is becoming like many other industries where an individual finds a particular niche. Like a medical practitioner, a DBA will start out a general practitioner, but over time he or she will start to specialise in a particular field, such as Performance Tuning or Analysis Services. So what part of SQL Server do you think you specialise in?
- Peter Ward
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One of the challenges that many organizations are facing is not just how to recruit staff but more importantly how to retain their existing staff. According to a recent survey by Gartner, over 50% of ICT employees have been employed with their current organization for less than two years. I am sure that if you look around your office there will be a lot of faces that were not there two years ago as well as a lot of missing faces.
The challenge for employers is identifying what motivates someone to stay in an organization. Even though salaries are higher than ever for database professionals, it is not necessarily money that motivates someone to leave an organization. Sure, an extra $50,000 is motivating but $5,000 may not be a motivating factor. Often $5,000 is not enough of a motivator, as there are potentially additional costs associated with a new work place such as parking costs or the additional cost of public transport. What a lot of people are starting to do is put more value on a role rather than salary alone by including items such as training or working with the latest technology. What motivates you to move employers—is it money alone or are there other factors that influence your decision?
- Peter Ward
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