100 Things I Hate About Views: Undeclared Data Types in Columns
Category:
database-administration
, sql-server
Views let you do dumb things by accident in SQL Server. Then they make you have to think way too hard to fix them.
Category: database-administration
AI Will Eliminate DBA Jobs Faster Than You Think
Category:
database-administration
, sql-server
I listened to ‘Surviving the A.I. Endgame’ this weekend and realized: I’ve become one of the believers that AI advances are very likely to completely change tech and knowledge roles as we know them over the next 10 years. This is going to dramatically shrink the workforce across MANY roles (and many of those impacted will be outside of the tech sector). It isn’t that people won’t be needed anymore, but far fewer people will be needed. Including people with database administrator (DBA) roles like mine.
How to Survive Opening a Microsoft Support Ticket for SQL Server or Azure SQL
Asking Microsoft for support for SQL Server or Azure SQL is a lousy experience these days, whether you’re using a cheaper service tier or the more expensive support tier formerly known as “Premiere Support.” You need to know a lot about the root cause of your problem and how to solve it, or your request will be dismissed with misinformation. You’ll need data and metrics to back up your claims to get the ticket escalated, and you’ll need to provide those receipts multiple times. Once escalated to the Product Group, you may get a helpful response, but it takes a while. If the answer is relayed through a lower support tier, it often won’t make much sense.
These issues aren’t due to bad work ethics or personal failings of support workers. These are good humans trying their best. The problem is worse because it’s systemic.
Error 1119 When Shrinking Database: Removing IAM Page Failed
At times when shrinking a data file in a SQL Server or Azure SQL Managed Instance/Database, shrink operations may persistently fail with the error:
Msg 1119, Level 16, State 1, Line 11
Removing IAM page ([filenumber]:[pagenumber]]) failed because someone else is using
the object that this IAM page belongs to. DBCC execution completed. If DBCC printed
error messages, contact your system administrator.
There’s not much documented on this error anywhere that I can find, so I’m sharing my experience with this error.
TLDR; I was not able to get past this without restarting the SQL Server service.
What To Do When They Are Sure It Was The Database... All The Time
Category:
database-administration
, career
It can be tiring to have the database constantly be the Prime Suspect for performance problems.
I’ve had many variations of this conversation over the years:
“Something happened, and we’re pretty sure it was the database. Again.”
Dear SQL DBA - Data Roles: DBA, DBRE, and Data Engineer
Category:
database-administration
, career
There are lots of jobs for data folks. In this episode, I discuss three hot job titles: Database Administrator (DBA), Database Reliability Engineer (DBRE), and Data Engineer (DE).
The Difference Between DBAs, DBREs, and Data Engineers
Category:
career
, database-administration
Twenty years ago, database administrators (DBAs) were the primary career path when it came to specializing in data management.
Much has changed: development patterns transformed from Waterfall to Agile, DevOps drives automation and shared ownership of code, and cloud services have made many more kinds of PaaS databases, data lakes, and data lakehouses available to organizations of all sizes.
These changes have introduced new and varied career paths for data folks which have different emphases on skill sets. In this post, I talk through the commonalities and differences between DBAs, Database Reliability Engineers (DBREs), and Data Engineers (DEs). Whether you’re a hiring manager or data professional, it’s worth knowing about these roles.