December 27, 2006 | Comments: (0)
OK, if you guys remember, I told you that I'd be talking to MS about the tools they provide for DBAs, since they don't seem to be working out very well. Well, I think it was friday I finally got on a call with them, and here's basically what came of it.
Their research has made them choose a certain path, and they do recognize that they didn't get it exactly right. However, they made a sincere argument that they want to get it right. They swore to me that they're dedicated to making tools DBAs can actually use. We got into a couple specifics that get on my nerves, and a couple things that have actually crippled me; they were very receptive.
You have to understand though that whenever you compile a feature list, you have to balance effort vs return. It's simple math really. Should we spend 3mos and 10 devs writing this piece of code that 5 people are asking for, or that same amount of time writing something that 500 people are asking for? Do you write a really cool feature into the product, or do you fix what's already wrong with it? These are decisions every software vendor has to make for every release cycle. And it's a fine line to walk. From what I can tell, MS at least tries to do things right. They pull in customers and run them through the product and give them a set of tasks to perform. They then write the GUI based off of these results (and others I'm sure).
My big question now is since the GUI isn't living up to what it should be, is the test flawed, or is the general DBA population filled with idiots? I don't think they're pulling in MVPs for these studies. Maybe they are, I don't know, but it's always been my view that if you write for the real professionals, everyone else will fall in line. Don't write for the LCD, write for the ones who really know what they're doing. If you think about it, it's the smarter way of doing things. Which do you think is a better way to feed an industry... to write to the masses who don't know what they're doing, and force the real pros to work like them, or to write to the pros and show the masses how they should be working? I would think that writing to the pros would be better for everyone. Sure, the masses won't get it at first, but as they get better, they'll see that things are better this way. There's always the risk you run of scaring away your user base though. A certain amount of the population will run to the vendor tools that dumb everything down for them. That's fine, let them go. If they ever pick up a book and learn something they'll be back.
All this has me thinking though. What are the qualities of a good tool? This isn't necessarily DBA specific either; it goes for any kind of tool. I would say that the really good tools make you feel comfortable no matter what your skill level. They grow with you. If you're a novice, you can get your job done. As you grow in your career, there are things to discover in the tool that will make things easier for you. Yeah, that's it. A tool has to grow with its users. It has to have a good mix of GUI, menu, wizard, command-line, scripting, reporting, extensibility, etc. It all has to be there. Early in my career I found an MVP and asked what tool he used to admin SQL. He said he used Query Analyzer. I then had him give me a few of the things he felt that it gave him over anything else, and he gave me a list of about 10 things, most of which I'd never heard before. So I started using Query Analyzer and even though I was a little young in SQL to really get the appeal, I slowly started to see what he meant. In short, whatever the real experts are using is what everybody should be using. And if the those experts aren't endorsing your tools, then you don't have good tools. I talked to many of the MVPs at PASS, and none of them are very happy with the DBA tools for SQL Server.
Here's what we ultimately decided. I'm going to have a monthly call with MS to discuss issues with the tools. So, if you guys have any feature requests, feel free to send them to me and I'll champion them if I think they're worth anything.
So send them to me at sean_mccown@infoworld.com. We'll have other topics of discussion as well I'm sure, because we did discuss a couple other problems in other areas.
Ok, so that's the report.
Posted by Sean McCown on December 27, 2006 07:12 AM
December 19, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Where does Database Auditing Belong?
I've had so many good discussions with vendors and DBAs recently it's really hard to know where to begin. I'm going to start with the most recent talk I had with a vendor (not going to say just yet) because it's still very fresh on my mind. And those of you who know me know how important that is.
We were talking about DB auditing and where the responsibility actually belongs. As we all know, auditing has traditionally been the role of the DBAs. DBAs are the gatekeepers of the information inside the DB, and whenever an anyone needs a list of the DB access for the past whatever period of time, they go to the DBA. Afterall, he is the one who manages the access to the system. And he is the one who setup and manages the auditing mechanism. And he's the one who probably wrote the reports you're looking at. So why wouldn't you go to him? He's the go-to guy for the DB, isn't he?
Now, what this vendor is proposing is that the DB auditing is to be moved out of the hands of the DBA and into the hands of the compliance officer (CO). Their argument is that the separation of duties is more or less driving this. When a CO or auditor asks the DBA for an access report they have no way of knowing if the data has been doctored to hide something or not. I don't really think that separation of duties has much to do with it though. A DBA would be able to alter that data no matter who was driving the reports. If I know the system is being audited and I do something I'm not supposed to, then I'll cover my tracks the same way regardless of whether I'm producing the reports or not. So from that aspect, I think they're way off base.
However, I do think they're more or less on track in their approach. What they're doing is taking something like DB security and starting to wrap real BI around it and turning CO's into consumers of that data. If you look at the classical role of DBAs in a BI environment, this holds more true to the model. DBAs do what... they provide end users with the data they need to make decisions. Be they analysts, managers, whatever, they have their client tools for accessing and analyzing their business data. Well, what if your business is the security access of the DB? Then you should have client software that supports your role.
I've worked in several healthcare orgs and at none of them was I ever asked to help analyze the business data. So why would I be asked to analyze this business data? Well, like I said before... traditionally this was the role of the DBA, and with good reason. Data's a complicated beast and it can be hard to sink your teeth into it. DBAs typically understand more about the nature of the access being reported on, and they know what's going on with the processes.
So what this new process will entail is a CO pissing off a DBA because now the DBA has to justify all of the DB access to someone who doesn't really know anything about it. Everytime a new process kicks off, he'll get a call from basically an end user upstairs who wants to know the ins and outs of the access. I'm not sure how DBAs are going to respond to having to justify things like that. And will it really matter in the end? Let's say that I want to steal all this data I'm not supposed to have. I write a query to export it, and the CO notices it. So he calls me and says, what's going on with this new process hitting the DB? All I have to do is tell him that it's a validation of some kind or something like that, and he'll go, oh, ok then. Unless you have strict policies in place to justify every single process and every single query, this whole model goes out the window.
Coming from a DBA perspective I have a hard time believing that someone outside DBs will be able to do as good of a job as the DBA would. And if a CO wants to also be a consumer of the data, then that's fine, but there's no way I'll essentially report to a CO and have to justify everything the user community does. I quite often find that these guys don't understand it anyway and just end up taking my word for it.
Coming from a business perspective however, it's nice to have someone who's skilled at this type of analysis and who isn't so married to the data side of things to put a fresh pair of eyes on it. Maybe a little accountability is good to have for your DBA team so they don't get so uppity thinking they can do just whatever they want.
In the end, I'm hoping that everyone will just learn to work together and the CO will become a customer of the DBA instead of a logical reporting structure. Perhaps the CO will analyze the audit data along with the DBA who will proactively remit the outstanding access issues so the CO doesn't have to call and bug him about it.
My guess is though that only the really large companies will even have to deal with this. Most companies are probably still going to rely on their DBAs for this type of analysis as well as all other aspects of DB security. Whichever way it plays out for you though, look at it this way... at least you don't have to worry about MySQL in this mix.
That'll be my topic tomorrow.
Posted by Sean McCown on December 19, 2006 10:52 AM
December 18, 2006 | Comments: (0)
OK, I've written before that DBAs should know more than just DBs. I've just posted a review on an ASP.NET training course that is just excellent. Again, it's by AppDev, and I would personally recommend it to anyone wanting to get into ASP.NET.
Of course, it's not perfect. As with almost any training course, there are some issues. You'll have to go read the actual review to get the specifics. You can find it by going to ITBookworm. Click on 'Videos' on the left.
I honestly believe that DBAs should know far more than just DBs. If any of you have ever supported DBs that were being hit by .Net apps, you'll know what I'm talking about. You almost always end up going through the front end code. Not only that, but you also end up coding your own solutions for managing your servers.
Anyway, I'm in danger of beating a dead horse now, so I'll let it die, but definitely take a look at the review and try to get your company to let you pick up the course. It's really worth it.
Posted by Sean McCown on December 18, 2006 07:42 PM
December 15, 2006 | Comments: (0)
I've got one issue that if any of you guys on the Windows team are listening, I could use some guidance. Keep reading...
So I finally took the plunge and upgraded my main workstation to Vista. What can I say except that I completely love this OS. I bought a top of the line Velocity box a couple months ago in preparation for this, and I'm able to take full advantage of the new graphics. It's just a beautiful design and I think it far out-does anything Mac and Linux are doing. I'm already taking advantage of a lot of the new features as well. I'm not going to go into too much detail about the wonders of it all because you can read that anywhere.
What I do want to talk about though is my upgrade experience. This is just kind of a primer for those of you who are thinking of making the leap yourselves. First of all, definitely run the >upgrade advisor first. There are several things that will stop your upgrade. Most of them are apps that are incompatible though, and once you get past them, you should be ok.
I had to uninstall >Roxio and >Acronis before I could upgrade, but no big loss. I hear though that Acronis now has a Vista release. Anyway though... the upgrade itself took around 3hrs. I did an upgrade in >VMWare before, and it was much quicker, but my workstation has a lot of apps on it, so it took quite some time. The upgrade process rebooted several times and often times seemed to be dead, but regardless of how long it takes, it's still plugging along. When it finally came up though, it was flawless. I had some initial concerns about my wireless USB card, but when all was said and done, the driver mapped just fine.
There were a couple driver problems, but they were very minor and I got them worked out with little trouble. The sound card was one of them, and I was lucky that there was a beta Vista driver online that I was able to plug in just fine. There's some PCI controller thingy (sorry to be so technical) that doesn't seem to have a compatible driver, but things seems to be working just fine without it, so no blood no foul I guess. I had some trouble with my DVD burners, but once I upgraded my motherboard chipset drivers, they started working again. Finding the chipset drivers on Intel was very easy, and I had what I needed in just a couple minutes.
My only outstanding issue is with the Vista Help. For some reason, every time I go to bring up Windows help on anything it tells me that it can't find the site. Then it just searches forever. I let it run overnight one time and it never returned anything. So if there's anybody on the Windows team reading, I could use some help on this.
Otherwise, I've got no problems, and I'm just Lovin' life. Windows team: EXCELLENT work!!! Maybe the SQL team could contract a couple of you boys to do their front end as well.
Posted by Sean McCown on December 15, 2006 07:15 AM
December 13, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Database Management to Kill For
I was watching an old episode of Law and Order the other night on Tivo and a big VP with a fortune 500 company was killed. Early in their investigation they found out that the database management software he had approved and purchased was obsolete by the time he got it. For a brief while it was the basis of their theory... he was murdered over this purchase because database management software is very expensive. Frankly, that's the only thing they got right. Fortune 500 companies don't care any more about how good the DBA's tools are any more than Microsoft does (just kidding Liz).
It's not just fortune 500 companies though. I've never really seen any company care all that much about their DBA tools. In fact, the tools quite often get traded out with the DBAs. Some prefer the native tools, some prefer Embarcadero or Quest. All the same, most companies don't take much stock in it. That's not the way it should be though. The amount of time your DBAs spend on the every day management part of their jobs is less time they have to actually be productive.
It's an incredible balancing act that the tools have to manage. They have to be extremely useful and save time while at the same time not making the DBA too dumb. It does seem though that we're never happy. We want something to make our jobs easier and obscure us from the inner workings of our most mundane tasks, yet we get upset when we can't find a DBA who knows anything about those inner workings.
Anyway, I'm going off on a tangent here so I'll stop. The point is I just thought that episode was funny and wanted to share it. I've caught their writers in mistakes before, and this was just one of the more subtle.
Posted by Sean McCown on December 13, 2006 09:54 AM
December 12, 2006 | Comments: (0)
With all of the talk about MS not caring about DBAs lately (and I'm still getting emails about it), it also seems as though MS has taken notice. They've contacted me and want to discuss our different views on how well they like DBAs. We're actually not able to hook up until next week sometime, but when we finally do, I'll be pretty anxious to report to you how it goes. What I'm expecting from the conversation is some detail on where we've been with DBA tools, where we are now, and where they plan to take us. I know a lot of you are looking forward to hearing their response as well, and I'll let you know when I have something.
Here are the blogs I've written on the topic:
Why Doesn't MS Care about DBAs?
I Guess It's True Then
Posted by Sean McCown on December 12, 2006 02:33 PM
December 08, 2006 | Comments: (0)
The other day I wrote how MS doesn't care about DBAs. I really thought I was just being my usual negative self, but as it turns out, I'm not the only one. I've received so much email from DBAs saying the same thing, and that they're disgusted by MS's lack of thought they put into DBA tools. Some have even gone so far as to say MS is trying to do away with DBAs completely and make everyone a developer. That would certainly seem to be the case with all the advancements they're making to developer tools, and hardly anything for DBAs. I keep thinking that surely MS can't be so blind as to think that a developer could do a DBA's job. Then it hits me... they've been big on ease of use, and they're certainly easier than a lot of the other DBs, so maybe their ultimate goal is to engineer us out of a job. Is the goal to make SQL so easy to use that you just don't need DBAs? It's possible I suppose, but if that is their true goal, it's a naive proposition. Developers simply don't know the things DBAs do, and who will fix all of their bad code if they're the ones watching the system, or if the system is watching itself. True, SQL Server may be so easy even a caveman can use it, but that doesn't mean problems don't arise. And when they do, who are you going to turn to... the Windows guy??? The developer who thinks SQL can only be written in cursors??? HAH!
From everything I'm seeing though, it certainly seems like they're trying to do away with DBAs. Our tools are becoming less and less rich, while plenty of effort is being put into developers. But I'm telling you right here and now... the day you get rid of DBAs is the day you get rid of your database. There just has to be somebody who knows how systems work, and how to make all of the DB code play together all nice-like.
Like I said... I thought it was just me, but the feedback I've gotten is overwhelming in favor of MS just not doing much for DBAs. And I realize that we're like the illegal aliens of IT, but you'd better start taking care of us, or you'll find out the hard way exactly what it is we do.
Posted by Sean McCown on December 8, 2006 12:34 PM
December 07, 2006 | Comments: (0)
A New Product with a Sexy Voice
At PASS I had the pleasure of finally meeting the man behind the new DBLaunch for SQL Server. I had talked with Sean before, and it sounded interesting so I was glad to get a chance to sit down with him.
DBLaunch is basically an install and patch management system for SQL Server. You install the server, and you can push out preconfigured SQL installs, as well as schedule mass installs of patches, and configuration changes.
I have managed to get a hold of a copy now and I'll be running it through its paces to see if it's really all that. However, from what I saw at PASS it looks really promising.
I should mention too that Sean McLean's got one of those sexy Scottish brogues that drives me wild. Every time I talk to him I fall a little deeper. OK, just kidding (I think), but you girls will love his accent.
If you don't believe me, then go visit his new Camtasia videos demonstrating the product. You'll find them here.
Posted by Sean McCown on December 7, 2006 06:59 AM
December 06, 2006 | Comments: (0)
As DBAs need RSS feeds the same as everyone else, I thought I'd pass along this new project by MS. It's a 3D RSS reader that reads directly from your IE7 store. It's an interesting concept, but im just not sure I'm ready for something like this. I don't necessarily want to browse my news like I'm traveling through the galaxy. I tend to prefer to just look at a list and choose what I want to read. This type of browsing can take a long time.
I downloaded it last night, and you need .Net framework 3.0 and Direct-X 9. The biggest problem right now is the same one you have for every startup project, and that's that nobody's actually writing for it yet. So all of my 30-something feeds have the generic RSS logo instead of a cool little graphic. So it makes it really hard to find anything at all. However, it does demonstrate the power of WPF which is something I'm a big fan of. Personally, I hope this project really takes off and becomes more practical. I love cool stuff like this. Anyway, here's the link if any of you guys wanna check it out.
http://www.microsoft.com/emea/msdn/thepanel/featured/universs.aspxUnivRSS
Posted by Sean McCown on December 6, 2006 06:54 AM
December 05, 2006 | Comments: (0)
I said before that DBAs should know more that just SQL. I believe I blogged on that here. Along those lines, I just finished a review of a very nice javascript video training course. It's done by How To Gurus and the guy who does the instruction is actually quite good.
I don't get paid for doing these reviews, and I don't get any kickbacks from the vendors. So every review I do is on the up and up. If you don't believe me, just check out the review for SQLUSA.
Anyway, I highly recommend that you guys get up to speed on javascript because not only is it pretty much everywhere on the web, but MS is also investing highly in it as ASP.Net generates javascript functions behind the scenes. Javascript is is actually more functional than vbscript especially on the web.
So consider this the first of many recommendations on training. Books are ok, and you can get the job done, but there's nothing like having it explained where you can hear the inflections, and impromptu explanations of topics as they come up. I've really grown quite fond of video training, and this one is excellent.
If you're interested, go read my full review.
Posted by Sean McCown on December 5, 2006 05:57 PM
December 05, 2006 | Comments: (0)
I was at lunch with another DBA yesterday and he made a statement that sparked a real bitter discussion. He said something to the effect of "I want to get this done in my career before I get replaced by a kid straight out of college".
Now, I know he was joking, but I've heard about this several times, and I've had several readers tell me that they've lost many jobs to kids with practically no experience. I tend to take stuff like this pretty seriously because not only will I be nearing that age soon, but I'm one of those rare people who think that experience still counts for something.
One of the biggest problems is getting my mind around why companies would put their reputation on the line to save a few bucks by having someone with practically no experience build their software or run their operations. I've already been a victim of that to a degree. I had a company get rid of me and kept a much lesser DBA because I was much more expensive. Forget the fact that the other DBA couldn't even read most of my code much less actually support it... but I'm not bitter, I swear!
Anyway though, it just makes me sick that people are being aged-out of this industry at around 40. I agree that you need some fresh blood in there to help with cool graphics, etc, but you should always have the heavy stuff done by heavy staff.
So, as usual, here's a list of things you don't want done by fresh college grads. And remember... if you think hiring a professional is expensive, try not hiring one.
This is for you managers who want something for nothing:
Surgeon -- I'll be glad to hook any of you money-grubbing managers out there up with a surgical resident and we'll see what a good job he does on your child who was just hit by a car.
Airline mechanic/inspector -- I'll book your flight myself!
SQL Server coder -- This is the guy who actually writes SQL Server. You can pinch that penny all you like, but I want the guy writing my DB to have actually done it before... go figure.
Airline pilot -- Don't worry, jr will get you there.
Architect -- How many buildings have collapsed from bad design? I hope it's yours next.
Defense Attorney -- I'll let you go to jail so jr can finish his book report.
City Planner -- I'll buy you a house there myself.
Smoke Detector Engineer -- You can put them in every room of your house.
Any application your company relies on -- How many companies have had even experienced people make big mistakes? Do you really want to put your entire reputation and revenue on some kid out of college because he's a little cheaper?
The bottom line is it's easy to get sucked into the moment and try to save some money right now. A real experienced manager though, knows that you can't run a business like that, and it only comes back to bite you. So try to think past tomorrow and try to look at the big picture.
Sure, kids can be attractive. They work insane hours for next to nothing. They don't have families to take them away from their jobs. And they're easier to push around because they don't know all the labor laws yet. Then again, they're also irresponsible, inexperienced, and capricious. They quit jobs at the drop of a hat because they can. They don't have any outside responsibilities, so if something pisses them off, they just take off. It's that simple.
Both age groups have their advantages and disadvantages. The question is, what's the goal you've set for your business? Do you wanna do real business in an efficient and intelligent manner, or do you wanna push around a bunch of kids so nobody's ever smarter than you?
Posted by Sean McCown on December 5, 2006 09:29 AM
December 04, 2006 | Comments: (0)
OK, for all of you out there who are fortunate enough to be close to a good DBA and are looking for some good x-mas gifts, here's a list of what the most fashionable DBAs are going to want this year.
USB Keyboard Light - We're always up in the middle of the night and we don't want to turn on all the lights. I've used these lights for years now and they're a fabulously thoughtful gift.
SQL Server 2005 Practical Troubleshooting: The Database Engine - Your DBA will love to be the first one at work with Ken Henderson's new book. Trust me... if he's any kind of DBA at all, he knows Ken Henderson and he'll appreciate this.
USB Flash Drive - A lot of books come with ebooks these days, and I've found it really handy to carry around my USB key drive to keep my library on. This way, I've always got the answers. Don't ask your DBA what other emergency provisions he keeps on it though, because you may get an answer you don't like.
USB Cup Warmer - Nothing like hot tea that stays how while we're profiling thousands of lines of code.
Posted by Sean McCown on December 4, 2006 10:00 AM
December 01, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Funny thing... I'm in the middle of reviewing the SysInternals video training series, and I'm currently in the middle of the crash dump analysis video. I've finished about an hour of it so far, and yesterday I noticed my client kept losing connectivity with the DB server in my lab. That's a fairly odd thing to happen, and I remembered something they said in the video, that Server 2003 is configured to reboot when it gets a blue screen. So I checked my dump dir, and sure enough, it had been blue screening and rebooting. So I fast forwarded to the part of the video where they talked about how to install the symbols and run the debugger to analyze the crash dump files. Within like 5mins of starting, I had the file analyzed and it told me that my RAID driver was probably the cause. So I went online and updated the driver. I just think it's funny that I start having this problem at the same time I'm given the tools to fix it.
Now, I'm not sure if that fixed the problem or not, because I'm still having some issues today. I have to wait until I get back there later to see if it's still dumping or if it's something else causing it. The point is however, that the basics of analyzing dumps aren't that hard, especially when they explain it to you in such detail.
So, while I haven't finished the final review yet, I'm going to go ahead and say that there isn't anybody in IT who wouldnt benefit from this series. It's simply fabulous. And the videos are only like $100/ea, so they're quite affordable.
I highly recommend that every one of you rush right out and get these videos. However, maybe you should wait for the final review to see how they shake out in the end. I'll post something here when I've got it done so you can go check it out.
If you're interested though, here's the direct link to the crash dump video.
Posted by Sean McCown on December 1, 2006 10:32 AM
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