June 5, 2012 at 11:29 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Platform as Code
June 6, 2012 at 12:35 am
My years of systems development really comes in handy. Whenever I need to do something, my first thought is " automate". Next is how do I replicate this procedure(s).
CMS helps a lot with deploying code to multiple servers.
Good TSQL skills help with analysis and querying DMv's and my own monitoring data.
I am a developer at heart and I always write code, whether it is TSQL, Delphi or C#. I use my skills to make my life easy.
It's no use that there is a lot of info available and you cannot get to it and analyze it fast.
June 6, 2012 at 9:53 am
Automation implies repetition, consistency, validation and monitoring. The reality of the managed world is you need a strong commitment from the entire environment to the repeatability of EVERYTHING to truly make things behave! It is amazing to me how varied environments get in an extremely short time! The idea of dev to test to stage to production seems to make an incredible amount of sense, yet almost every time you look there are "undocumented" differences that impact the way a system operates. Virtualization has created some opportunities to take some variables out, but new, more subtle variances have a way of sneaking back in!
It's an interesting time to be in the management space, but in the grand scheme of things, the gremlins are still in search of ways to stick it to us!
June 6, 2012 at 10:07 am
Automation of server management is one of the major Microsoft's thrusts. MS AutoPilot allows 5 or 6 admins manage the entire Office 365. I think it is realistic that within say three years an admin will be able to manage up to 10,000 next-gen SQLS servers.
June 6, 2012 at 10:31 am
Revenant (6/6/2012)
Automation of server management is one of the major Microsoft's thrusts. MS AutoPilot allows 5 or 6 admins manage the entire Office 365. I think it is realistic that within say three years an admin will be able to manage up to 10,000 next-gen SQLS servers.
Which is good, considering how fast the number of instances seems to grow 😛
June 6, 2012 at 10:57 am
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (6/6/2012)
Revenant (6/6/2012)
Automation of server management is one of the major Microsoft's thrusts. MS AutoPilot allows 5 or 6 admins manage the entire Office 365. I think it is realistic that within say three years an admin will be able to manage up to 10,000 next-gen SQLS servers.Which is good, considering how fast the number of instances seems to grow 😛
I agree Steve, that is good, I just hope we are not all "automating" ourselves out of job in the future...:-D
"Technology is a weird thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ...:-D"
June 6, 2012 at 11:03 am
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (6/6/2012)
Revenant (6/6/2012)
Automation of server management is one of the major Microsoft's thrusts. MS AutoPilot allows 5 or 6 admins manage the entire Office 365. I think it is realistic that within say three years an admin will be able to manage up to 10,000 next-gen SQLS servers.Which is good, considering how fast the number of instances seems to grow 😛
It's theoretically possible for one sysadmin to manage 10,000 SQL Server instances today, so long as all they are doing is scheduling, monitoring, periodic upgrades, and occasional disaster recovery.
However, the reality is that SYSADMINs that manage SQL Server instances for internal coporate applications also do lots of one-off things like performance tune new SQL code, recover from rogue DELETE statements, sit in on architecture meetings, run ad-hoc queries for executive management or auditors, setup Profiler traces, etc. That type of stuff alone for a single PeopleSoft or CRM instance can keep a SYSADMIN busy full-time.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
June 6, 2012 at 11:12 am
I personally wouldn't consider PowerShell, Perl, or even T-SQL scripting to be "software development". Likewise, I wouldn't consider Entity Framework or LINQ to be "database development".
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
June 6, 2012 at 11:15 am
Eric M Russell (6/6/2012)
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (6/6/2012)
Revenant (6/6/2012)
Automation of server management is one of the major Microsoft's thrusts. MS AutoPilot allows 5 or 6 admins manage the entire Office 365. I think it is realistic that within say three years an admin will be able to manage up to 10,000 next-gen SQLS servers.Which is good, considering how fast the number of instances seems to grow 😛
It's theoretically possible for one sysadmin to manage 10,000 SQL Server instances today, so long as all they are doing is scheduling, monitoring, periodic upgrades, and occasional disaster recovery.
However, the reality is that SYSADMINs that manage SQL Server instances for internal coporate applications also do lots of one-off things like performance tune new SQL code, recover from rogue DELETE statements, sit in on architecture meetings, run ad-hoc queries for executive management or auditors, setup Profiler traces, etc. That type of stuff alone for a single PeopleSoft or CRM instance can keep a SYSADMIN busy full-time.
You know, I supported PeopleSoft HR and Finance systems and I only setup a trace once in five years trying to find a performance issue after upgrading from SQL Server 2000 to SQL Server 2005 on the Finance side (the upgrade to HR went fine, but it required the upgrade to SQL Server 2005). And that trace didn't even help. It took a trace from the PeopleSoft side to find the problem, a table with 200,000 rows and no indexes. Wasn't a problem using SQL Server 2000 but the application was timing out using SQL Server 2005. Once we indexed the table, everything was fine.
June 6, 2012 at 1:58 pm
Eric M Russell (6/6/2012)
I personally wouldn't consider PowerShell, Perl, or even T-SQL scripting to be "software development". Likewise, I wouldn't consider Entity Framework or LINQ to be "database development".
According to the article, Jesse Robbins offers:
"What has happened over a period of time is that sysadmin skill set has been expanding more and more to include more and more basic infrastructure software development."
Calling these activities "basic infrastructure software development" is a good thing in my opinion. Software development implies some valuable skills, practices, and a certain mindset and if I were to want someone engaging in "scripting" (even me!), I'd like them to keep these in mind. Even more so with coding that touches a database.
Just thought I'd offer an alternative viewpoint!
June 6, 2012 at 2:26 pm
patrickmcginnis59 (6/6/2012)
Eric M Russell (6/6/2012)
I personally wouldn't consider PowerShell, Perl, or even T-SQL scripting to be "software development". Likewise, I wouldn't consider Entity Framework or LINQ to be "database development".According to the article, Jesse Robbins offers:
"What has happened over a period of time is that sysadmin skill set has been expanding more and more to include more and more basic infrastructure software development."
Calling these activities "basic infrastructure software development" is a good thing in my opinion. Software development implies some valuable skills, practices, and a certain mindset and if I were to want someone engaging in "scripting" (even me!), I'd like them to keep these in mind. Even more so with coding that touches a database.
Just thought I'd offer an alternative viewpoint!
I'd call writing scripts for PowerShell and Perl "system integration". SYSADMINs are doing more system integration these days and hence more scripting.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
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