Player FM - Internet Radio Done Right
22 subscribers
Checked 5d ago
Vor zehn Jahren hinzugefügt
Inhalt bereitgestellt von Steve Jones. Alle Podcast-Inhalte, einschließlich Episoden, Grafiken und Podcast-Beschreibungen, werden direkt von Steve Jones oder seinem Podcast-Plattformpartner hochgeladen und bereitgestellt. Wenn Sie glauben, dass jemand Ihr urheberrechtlich geschütztes Werk ohne Ihre Erlaubnis nutzt, können Sie dem hier beschriebenen Verfahren folgen https://de.player.fm/legal.
Player FM - Podcast-App
Gehen Sie mit der App Player FM offline!
Gehen Sie mit der App Player FM offline!
Voice of the DBA
Alle als (un)gespielt markieren ...
Manage series 87197
Inhalt bereitgestellt von Steve Jones. Alle Podcast-Inhalte, einschließlich Episoden, Grafiken und Podcast-Beschreibungen, werden direkt von Steve Jones oder seinem Podcast-Plattformpartner hochgeladen und bereitgestellt. Wenn Sie glauben, dass jemand Ihr urheberrechtlich geschütztes Werk ohne Ihre Erlaubnis nutzt, können Sie dem hier beschriebenen Verfahren folgen https://de.player.fm/legal.
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.
…
continue reading
107 Episoden
Alle als (un)gespielt markieren ...
Manage series 87197
Inhalt bereitgestellt von Steve Jones. Alle Podcast-Inhalte, einschließlich Episoden, Grafiken und Podcast-Beschreibungen, werden direkt von Steve Jones oder seinem Podcast-Plattformpartner hochgeladen und bereitgestellt. Wenn Sie glauben, dass jemand Ihr urheberrechtlich geschütztes Werk ohne Ihre Erlaubnis nutzt, können Sie dem hier beschriebenen Verfahren folgen https://de.player.fm/legal.
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.
…
continue reading
107 Episoden
Alle Folgen
×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 Database First or Application First…
I saw an article recently that a quarter of the Y Combinator startups have 95% of the code in their repos being AI generated . 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 How Much AI Code Would You Use?…
V
Voice of the DBA

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 Part-Time DBAs…
V
Voice of the DBA

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 ( feature flag driven development , Why Use Feature Flags? ) as well as a discussion at Reddit . 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 Using Feature Flags…
V
Voice of the DBA

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 an article from Joe Celko on the CREATE DOMAIN statement . 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 A Domain for Data…
V
Voice of the DBA

The DORA organization 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 the Accelerate State of DevOps report every year, which is a fascinating read. As a part of the report, they have identified four key metrics 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 Database DevOps Metrics…
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 AI will eliminate DBA Jobs Faster Than You Think , 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 Is GenAI Coming Faster Than You Think?…
V
Voice of the DBA

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 SQL Server 2019 passed out of mainstream support 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 a report in the Register on this, which includes a survey of which versions are still running. This is from an IT asset firm and matches Brent Ozar's Population report . 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 The End of SQL Server 2019…
V
Voice of the DBA

V
Voice of the DBA

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. This article 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 Lower Your Attack Surface Area…
V
Voice of the DBA

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 ( one look at this ). At the same time, many other organizations have followed the large technology firms (FAANG, MSFT) and laid off large numbers of their staff 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. Salesforce noted that they did not expect to hire more software engineers in 2025 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 The Job Outlook for Database Professionals…
V
Voice of the DBA

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 a good piece 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 A Poor Data Model…
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 Your Biggest Data Model Complaints…
V
Voice of the DBA

Erin Stellato, a program manager at Microsoft, asked a very interesting question on LinkedIn : "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 Why Not Use AI?…
V
Voice of the DBA

I caught an article on AI skepticism 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 Trust is a Funny Thing…
V
Voice of the DBA

V
Voice of the DBA

I don't know how many of you will be disappointed or impacted by this, but Azure Data Studio (ADS) is being retired, as of 6 Feb, 2024. It will be supported for a little over a year, until 28 Feb, 2026. On one hand I'm not surprised, and on the other, I'm a little shocked by this. I have written a number of articles on ADS , and shown how things work, as well as pointed out a number of things that don't work well in the product or its extensions. These pieces have gotten a number of reads, and people have commented on them, so I wonder if there are a lot of you that are upset by this. Is this going to change the way you work? I will say that it will lightly change my work, as I do use ADS to connect to PostgreSQL, but not so much for SQL Server. Read the rest of The End of Azure Data Studio…
V
Voice of the DBA

V
Voice of the DBA

V
Voice of the DBA

V
Voice of the DBA

I had never heard of data debt until I saw this article on the topic . In reading it, I couldn't help thinking that most everyone has data debt, it creates inefficiencies, and it's unlikely we'll get rid of it. And by the way, it's too late to get this under control. I somewhat dismissed the article when I saw this: "addressing data debt in its early stages is crucial to ensure that it does not become an overwhelming barrier to progress." I know it's a barrier, as I assume most of you also know, but it's also not stopping us. We keep building more apps, databases, and systems, and accruing more data debt. Somehow, most organizations keep running. The description of debt might help here. How many of you have inconsistent data standards, where you might define a data element differently in different databases? Maybe you have duplicated data that is slow to update (think ETL/warehouses), maybe you have different ways of tracking a completed sale in different systems. Maybe you even store dates in different formats (int, string, or something weirder). How many of you lack some documentation on what the columns in your databases mean? Maybe I should ask the reverse, where the few of you who have complete data dictionaries can raise your hands. Read the rest of Data Debt…
V
Voice of the DBA

If your job as a developer or DBA has been like mine, it's a constant stream of requests to change something, often without enough information and short deadlines that create a bit of stress. There's always more work to be done, and while it might be a great job, you're often trying to finish something quickly enough to get to the next thing. In this mode, how often do you think about creating (or modifying) the thing you're working on for today vs maintaining it for tomorrow. In other words, do you consider how easily your work can be understood, is documented, is designed to allow for flexibility, and can be enhanced without many (any?) side effects, or anything else. Read the rest of Creating vs. Maintaining…
V
Voice of the DBA

The short answer is of course, most of us can learn and improve our skills to become better developers, engineers, DBAs, etc. While we might not be able to become the 10x engineer that many aspire to be, we can certainly become a better employee inside of an organization. There's a piece on becoming a more effective engineer, which is actually titled know how your org works . It a piece from an engineer that started with a tweet : The text was: You can either complain and pontificate on Twitter on how the tech industry *should* ideally work, or you can learn how your org *really* works and what’s rewarded, and optimize for that. Or quit and find another job. This might sound cynical - but it’s what it is. That sounds a little harsh, but the reality of how your org works or is structured or interacts is a reality. We all have hindsight to look back and wish someone (including us) had written code better. We might be sure if we could change one thing, or add/remove someone else, or make some other change, then things would be better. We might feel that there is a simple solution. Those things might be true, but they aren't the reality of the situation. Read the rest of Can You Become a More Productive Engineer?…
Willkommen auf Player FM!
Player FM scannt gerade das Web nach Podcasts mit hoher Qualität, die du genießen kannst. Es ist die beste Podcast-App und funktioniert auf Android, iPhone und im Web. Melde dich an, um Abos geräteübergreifend zu synchronisieren.