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PODCAST

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.

technology tech news

All Episodes

02:48

Learning NoSQL

Voice of the DBA ·

2024/01/17

It's a good idea to learn more about different technologies. I've been amazed throughout my career, and even now as someone working for a software vendor, how many different technologies I run into. I'm also amazed at how little bits of knowledge comes in handy, either to help me understand a problem or to help guide others with a recommendation of how to proceed. Many of us have experience with relational databases and tabular data. We are comfortable with it, even if we might struggle with a

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03:04

Portable Data Storage

Voice of the DBA ·

2024/01/15

I saw a review on a rugged SSD, and it got me thinking about local storage. Over the holidays I needed to scan something from a device at the ranch, but to get the image to my computer, I needed a flash drive. It took me 10 minutes of searching around to find one because I rarely use them anymore. In fact, I couldn't remember the last time I'd used one for a transfer between computers. I just send stuff through OneDrive/DropBox/GDrive or some other mechanism. Today I'm wondering if the rest of you

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03:25

Continuity Across Restarts

Voice of the DBA ·

2024/01/12

There are a lot of database platforms, and each tries to convince you theirs is better. As Brent points out in that link, sometimes they just skip comparing themselves to other platforms because it makes them look better. They only look at the platforms they compete well against. For most of us, we often just need basic CRUD operations. I know that most RDBMS platforms would work for us, and sometimes NoSQL ones work as well, though I think that NoSQL isn't necessarily better for many applications

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04:48

Re-evaluating the Cloud

Voice of the DBA ·

2024/01/10

Last year 37 Signals (makers of Basecamp and Hey) announced they were leaving the cloud. I wrote about the decision, and wondered if they'd look back at this as a great decision or one they'd regret and backtrack to the cloud again. They planned to build their own tooling, buy a bunch of servers, and run their own data center (or rather, rent space in someone's data center). Recently there was an update, in an FAQ, about how the transition has gone. In short, very well. One of the founders, David

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03:51

Advice for Business

Voice of the DBA ·

2024/01/08

During the last few months, I've seen a few different advice posts that caught me eye. One was Kevin Kelley's blog (and his book) on life advice that I previously wrote about, I look at the book once a week or two, read 1-2 items, and think about them. I think some of them are geared more for younger people growing into life, but quite a few are still things that I appreciate as learnings or reminders. Recently I ran across another one, Sam Altman's post looking back from a business point of view

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03:03

Projects To Showcase Your Skills

Voice of the DBA ·

2024/01/05

It seems I've heard from a lot of people looking for jobs lately. I had a friend reach out and when I posted a note on LinkedIn I had someone looking for a job, I heard from a few dozen others that they were in the same situation. The last year has seen a lot of turnover in IT. There have been lots of big (and small) companies that have let staff go, for a variety of reasons. The why doesn't matter to you if you've lost employment. You just need a new job. At the same time, I hear from lots of

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03:12

Fixing Poor Programming Practices

Voice of the DBA ·

2024/01/03

I see a lot of poor programming practices in real-world code. I'm sure I've written a few myself. I'm also sure that many of you see the same thing and sometimes wonder how that code got deployed. One of the things I told myself over the last few years was that I had to accept the reality of situations. It's easy to complain and say that code should be written differently or entities should be modeled in another way, but I (or you) can't change that situation today. And it ignores the fact that we

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03:12

The 2024 Plan

Voice of the DBA ·

2023/12/29

Today is the last working day of 2023. Next week we start with the New Year's holiday on Monday and then many of us go back to work, starting a new year. This is the time of year where many people make New Year's Resolutions, most of which will be abandoned by March. Some of you might keep to your goals, but it is hard to make substantial changes in your life all at once, especially based on a calendar date. Instead of making a resolution this weekend, I would suggest that you think about your

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03:08

Some Relief But Still Some Concern

Voice of the DBA ·

2023/12/27

Years ago Andy Warren and I were talking about the Database Weekly newsletter and what we wanted to include in each edition. We knew there wasn't enough news on a weekly basis, so we decided that we'd add blogs from various individuals as well as press releases, patches, and other items related to databases and SQL Server. At some point, we realized we were getting older and one of the unfortunate things that happen is people pass away. We thought about including obituaries as well since we knew a

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03:58

Building CyberSecurity Skills with an Advent Challenge

Voice of the DBA ·

2023/12/22

I've been working on the Advent of Cyber challenge this December. It's more of a walkthrough of some puzzles than it is solving them yourself, but it has given me a brush up on some skills and helped me learn some basics of how people in charge of (or looking to break) security look at the world. Plus it's been a little fun with a silly storyline each day. The first challenge starts with a chatbot and trying to social engineer answers out of it. This was interesting to me, even though it was likely

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04:47

AI In the Nov 2023 Enterprise

Voice of the DBA ·

2023/12/20

AI is everywhere. I can't seem to get away from stories on the technology in 2023, and while I don't know that I've found it that helpful, I keep looking at it because it's becoming a pervasive technology that most enterprises will experiment with in some way. There is a look at generative AI in the Enterprise in the O'Reilly Radar, which tracks how technology is changing and influencing the world. The report talks about most of the respondents to a survey using AI, which makes sense as the people

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03:19

Migrations are Worth the Effort

Voice of the DBA ·

2023/12/18

I work with a lot of customers that are trying to find better ways to build and deploy database code. Some of them use a state or model method with SQL Compare or another Redgate product, and some want to use Flyway and its hybrid migration-based framework. It's always interesting to me how customers lean one way or the other, for various reasons. No matter which choice people make, we know that using migrations is more effort than a state-based approach. However, I think that it's a better

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04:33

Try, Try Again, Until It's Right

Voice of the DBA ·

2023/12/15

One of the challenges with making changes in a database environment is that undoing those changes can be hard. What's often preferred is rolling forward with a new change to correct the issue, but that's often done with limited analysis and thought. Instead, we hope our staff makes a quick patch and a better decision under pressure than they did with more time to examine the problem. That works if it's a simple mistake that was made in implementation but not if we haven't designed our solution well

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02:45

Who Still Uses SP_ for Naming?

Voice of the DBA ·

2023/12/13

An interesting post recently from Chad Callihan on the reasons why someone shouldn't use sp_ to prefix their stored procedures. This is advice that I've seen for years, but I haven't run into this lately with many customers. It seems I do see some usp_, but not sp_. I think that's good, and if you're not sure why, read Chad's post. I think my main reason for not doing this is that I sometimes create procs in master. Not because it's a good idea (it isn't) or I want to, but because I'll make

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02:39

Breaking Biometrics

Voice of the DBA ·

2023/12/11

In the movies, when someone needs to bypass some sort of fingerprint biometric system, they use tape to lift a fingerprint, or in the more gory films, cut off a body part. In any case, there have been a lot of attempts to replicate this in the real world. Sometimes these work, though the consensus is modern hardware isn't as susceptible as older hardware. I don't know if that's true, but I did see an interesting look at the main three sensors used in most laptops. All the laptops had their

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03:12

Focus on Growth in Your Career

Voice of the DBA ·

2023/12/08

I find there to be a lot of value in actively managing your career. This is part of a series of editorials based on advice I've read from Raylene Yung (Facebook and Stripe) on your engineering career. I write a lot about growing your career. I think it's important to find a good career, but also learn to be good at whatever you choose to do for employment. While I do think that learning is a skill and each of us ought to sharpen our saws, I sometimes find people chasing new things all the time. In

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03:36

The Stagnant Career

Voice of the DBA ·

2023/12/06

Do you feel stagnant in your career? Or maybe the better question is do you care if you feel stagnant in your career? You might need to define what that means to you, as what might feel stagnant to one person could be comfortable to another. Apparently, there was a study of tech professionals, who despite a tight labor market, are citing lack of salary increases and dim promotion prospects as reasons to leave their jobs. The survey was across a number of larger technology companies, and likely

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02:38

Be Careful with Missing Index Requests

Voice of the DBA ·

2023/12/04

One of the things that has been interesting to watch over time is how the SQL Server platform has expanded the amount of information that we get back about the performance of the query optimizer and query processor. While it's not perfect, and there is room for improvement, the advances made with intelligent query processing are helping many systems run faster. Not all queries, but some. As I've done a little work on other platforms, there are ways to look for potential missing indexes in PostgreSQL

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03:22

The Balanced Technical Manager

Voice of the DBA ·

2023/12/01

I find there to be a lot of value in actively managing your career. This is part of a series of editorials based on advice I've read from Raylene Yung (Facebook and Stripe) on your engineering career. In the last few years I've started to see a number of organizations find ways to build technical career growth paths that don't require someone to become a manager. A lot of technical people don't want to manage others, and I'd argue that making the best technical person the lead or manager isn't often

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04:23

Advice To Be a Better Person

Voice of the DBA ·

2023/09/14

As a hobby, I coach volleyball for kids. Each year I meet new kids and parents and talk about my philosophy. Part of that is that I teach skills, athletics, how to compete, and more. However, I do emphasize as well that I'm trying to build better people, not just athletes. I want these kids to be better prepared for life, for job interviews, for future teachers and coaches, and for better relationships. While I'm not perfect, or maybe not even a great person, I do try to improve myself on a regular

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321 results

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