Voice of the DBA

Steve Jones

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.

  1. HÁ 1 DIA

    Can You Let Go of Determinism

    Why do we reboot machines when something goes wrong? I'm sure all have done it, and I would guess quite a few of you have found situations where this seems to fix issues, but there isn't an underlying root cause that you can pinpoint.  This is a fairly accepted way of dealing with issues, but have you thought about why this is a way to solve some problems? The main thing that a reboot does is return the system to a know starting state. It's why quite a few people complain about some modern laptops and mobile devices because they avoid restarts and try to sleep/wake instead. Most software expects to work on a stateless machine, so restarts help find a known good state. Read the rest of Can You Let Go of Determinism

    4min

  2. HÁ 4 DIAS

    Doing Good at SQL Server Central

    This is part of a few memories from the founders of SQL Server Central, celebrating 25 years of operation this month. We did photoshoots at Redgate many years ago. We had a bunch of props, including some phrases written down. We could create our own, but my handwriting is atrocious (likely why I never became an architect), but I ended up with this one: Read the rest of Doing Good at SQL Server Central

    4min

  3. HÁ 6 DIAS

    Engineer Lessons

    Many of you reading this have a number of years working with technology. You might have 1 year or 20 years, but you've likely grown and learned along the way. Some of you may also know someone who has several years of seniority in a position but not that many years of experience. In this case, a person might have been working at this job for 5 years, but they really have one year of experience that's been repeated 5 times. That's been a common complaint over quite a few years from people who interview others. They find candidates often have very limited experience, yet are applying for senior roles. These candidates are ones who have just a few years of experience, but have ended up repeating those few years over and over. Read the rest of Engineer Lessons

    3min

  4. 13 DE FEV.

    Expanding into Print

    This is part of a few memories from the founders of SQL Server Central, celebrating 25 years of operation this month. When we started SQL Server Central, our goal was to build a great resource that helped other people advance in their careers and also made some money. Our decisions in building the site were based around the digital world and treating the community as we would want to be treated. Over time, however, we realized that continuing to grow this business was hard in a digital-only world. We experimented and proposed helping others build similar sites, like ReportingServicesCentral (which would have been great) or NotificationServicesCentral (which would not), but ultimately, we weren't experts enough in those areas and couldn't find people willing to partner. Everyone thought they could do it themselves and that the knowledge was the hard part, and execution was easy. The truth is that the reverse is the way it works. Read the rest of Expanding into Print

    3min

  5. 11 DE FEV.

    The Power of Data and Privacy

    I tend to be fairly careful with data, especially data on this site. When we started the site, we were worried about potential issues and worked hard to ensure we kept our systems safe and limited the attack surface area for personal information. We also declined the various offers we had to sell our list of subscribers to marketing firms. We know that some places add value for marketing, but some abuse the trust of their users and our approach was always to be careful. When we sold the site to Redgate, we emphasized the need for this trust, and to date, Redgate has been a great steward of your personal information. I regularly field requests for uses of data from other marketing people, and almost all get declined. I've had a number of great managers who have supported me on this because we value your privacy. Read the rest of The Power of Data and Privacy

    3min

  6. 9 DE FEV.

    The DBA is Dead; Long Live the DBA

    I remember getting a job at a startup in the Denver Tech Center. This was shortly after SQL Server 7 was released, with a marketing campaign that the platform was auto-tuning and wouldn't require a DBA. My colleague asked me if I wanted to learn Cold Fusion and have a longer career. I declined and stuck with this SQL Server thing, which has seemed to work out pretty well over the years. I was reminded of this when I saw a "Death of the DBA Again" post, this time from an Oracle DBA. There are plenty of links in there from Larry Ellison and Oracle about how some version of Oracle won't require a DBA. I've seen questions on Reddit (and elsewhere ) about this topic where people seem to think DBAs can be replaced. Or maybe they want them replaced. Read the rest of The DBA is Dead; Long Live the DBA

    3min

  7. 6 DE FEV.

    When SQL Server Central Went Down

    Read the rest of When SQL Server Central Went Down

    4min

  8. 4 DE FEV.

    Expensive CPUs

    There have been a lot of features added to the SQL Server platform over the years. Several of these features let us perform functions that are beyond what a database has traditionally been designed to handle. SQL Server has had the ability to send emails,  execute Python/R/etc. code, and in SQL Server 2025, we can call REST endpoints. Quite a few of these features (arguably) are more application-oriented than database-oriented. There's nothing inherently wrong with having a server perform some of these functions, and there have been some very creative implementations using these features. I recently ran into one of these examples from Amy Abel, where she shows how to use the new REST endpoint feature to call an AI LLM to generate and send emails from your database server. That's creative, and it's reminiscent of the numerous examples from various experts over the years who demonstrate how these features can be used to accomplish a task. Read the rest of Expensive CPUs

    3min
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Sobre

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.

Informações

  • Criado por
    Steve Jones
  • Anos de atividade
    2007 - 2026
  • Episódios
    100
  • Classificação
    Livre
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2020 Steve Jones
  • Site do podcast
    Voice of the DBA