March 12, 2018 at 9:07 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Reliable DBA
March 13, 2018 at 7:12 am
Uber offers a lot of red meat for social scientists. Sadly given the behavior of the organization as a whole over time, I'd try to find sources of confirmation for whatever story they are telling.
412-977-3526 call/text
March 13, 2018 at 7:40 am
Currently I'm the sole DBA on my team and quite frankly, I'm not a fan of the situation. I don't think my bosses are either, but budget and contract things are keeping them from getting me even a part-time backup. So far, I've not taken any sick days (haven't gotten sick,) I've only missed one day when my car wouldn't start (dead battery,) and I've not taken any "mental health days" (not that I've not been tempted, but it's kind of a bad idea to call in for the day when you've already been at work for a couple hours,) so I'd say I've been quite reliable myself. I'm working on building up some better documentation of the systems, both for my own notes and as a "I got hit by a bus and won't be able to work for several months, someone else needs to handle the servers" sort of situation.
I do have the advantage of only being required to be available during our normal business hours, but I've made it clear to them that if there's a server-stopping issue (and I've had one of those) in production, I'll work the problem regardless of when it hits. Unless I'm somewhere that I can't work remotely (vacation, out of the country,) then it has to wait until I do get somewhere I can work the problem. As for performance my understanding from the bosses is that the customers are quite happy with the performance of the systems, and the availability has (knock on wood) been very high.
I think the biggest challenge to me being the sole DBA is going to be this year, though, in August, when I'm taking a 2 week vacation and travelling down south. I don't plan to take my work laptop along, although I may take my work phone along, it'll spend 99% of the trip in the room safe only occasionally getting pulled out for me to check e-mail. I'll do my level best in the months between now and then to get everything in order so that best case when I get back I'll just have to catch up on a stack of e-mails, but there's always going to be the unexpected...
March 13, 2018 at 8:13 am
robert.sterbal 56890 - Tuesday, March 13, 2018 7:12 AMUber offers a lot of red meat for social scientists. Sadly given the behavior of the organization as a whole over time, I'd try to find sources of confirmation for whatever story they are telling.
This is a technical talk, solely discussing the reliability of their infrastructure. It has nothing to do with how/why/what their business model is or whether it's good/bad.
March 13, 2018 at 8:15 am
jasona.work - Tuesday, March 13, 2018 7:40 AMI think the biggest challenge to me being the sole DBA is going to be this year, though, in August, when I'm taking a 2 week vacation and travelling down south. I don't plan to take my work laptop along, although I may take my work phone along, it'll spend 99% of the trip in the room safe only occasionally getting pulled out for me to check e-mail. I'll do my level best in the months between now and then to get everything in order so that best case when I get back I'll just have to catch up on a stack of e-mails, but there's always going to be the unexpected...
Good luck with getting away. I've been in that situation, and for smaller organizations, it's a challenge to have a backup. Usually I try to doc things and get another person involved and teach them rudimentary solutions to things I know commonly occur.
Outside of that, until there's a problem, likely management won't do more.
March 13, 2018 at 8:20 am
Steve Jones - SSC Editor - Tuesday, March 13, 2018 8:13 AMrobert.sterbal 56890 - Tuesday, March 13, 2018 7:12 AMUber offers a lot of red meat for social scientists. Sadly given the behavior of the organization as a whole over time, I'd try to find sources of confirmation for whatever story they are telling.This is a technical talk, solely discussing the reliability of their infrastructure. It has nothing to do with how/why/what their business model is or whether it's good/bad.
They seem to use the support they get by sharing to offset their challenging behavior elsewhere.
They have a pretty good sense about what to publish and how to get attention for it. I don't think it is accidental.
412-977-3526 call/text
March 13, 2018 at 8:25 am
... I ran across a talk from Uber on reliability. It's more of a high level architecture talk about distributed systems and being able to detect and respond to issues. Certainly Uber works at a rate and scale that few of us will reach in our organizations. ...
The folks over at Uber certainly know how to build software. I'll give them that much. Their mobile application is amazing. Unfortunately that's about all they excel at. Their executive management are lousy when it comes to compliance, human resources, and netting a profit. The business as a whole is a money pit that generates billions in loss each year.
The folks who drive for Uber don't make much money in the first place and complain that they are treated like a cog in a machine. In fact, what they do could be automated. My prediction that sometime soon Google, Elon Musk, or one of the other companies developing driver-less car technology will offer to buy out Uber just for their ride share software. Once done, customers could use the Uber mobile app to call up a driver-less car to take them to the airport or wherever at a fraction of the cost.
It's inevitable. It will happen.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
March 13, 2018 at 9:02 am
Steve Jones - SSC Editor - Tuesday, March 13, 2018 8:15 AMjasona.work - Tuesday, March 13, 2018 7:40 AMI think the biggest challenge to me being the sole DBA is going to be this year, though, in August, when I'm taking a 2 week vacation and travelling down south. I don't plan to take my work laptop along, although I may take my work phone along, it'll spend 99% of the trip in the room safe only occasionally getting pulled out for me to check e-mail. I'll do my level best in the months between now and then to get everything in order so that best case when I get back I'll just have to catch up on a stack of e-mails, but there's always going to be the unexpected...Good luck with getting away. I've been in that situation, and for smaller organizations, it's a challenge to have a backup. Usually I try to doc things and get another person involved and teach them rudimentary solutions to things I know commonly occur.
Outside of that, until there's a problem, likely management won't do more.
Yeah, I won't be too surprised (won't be very happy about it, but not surprised) if I get at least one call during those weeks. My bosses have both my personal and work cell numbers (and they still keep calling my personal,) but I'll be roaming around a convention and likely won't hear my ringer, so they'll just have to wait until I check my phone at some point.
Although I think I will discuss with the bosses about possibly taking my work laptop along with me, just in case there's a major malfunction that no one here can resolve.
Teach me to take vacations in the continental United States...
:hehe::crazy:
March 13, 2018 at 9:05 am
Steve Jones - SSC Editor - Tuesday, March 13, 2018 8:15 AMjasona.work - Tuesday, March 13, 2018 7:40 AMI think the biggest challenge to me being the sole DBA is going to be this year, though, in August, when I'm taking a 2 week vacation and travelling down south. I don't plan to take my work laptop along, although I may take my work phone along, it'll spend 99% of the trip in the room safe only occasionally getting pulled out for me to check e-mail. I'll do my level best in the months between now and then to get everything in order so that best case when I get back I'll just have to catch up on a stack of e-mails, but there's always going to be the unexpected...Good luck with getting away. I've been in that situation, and for smaller organizations, it's a challenge to have a backup. Usually I try to doc things and get another person involved and teach them rudimentary solutions to things I know commonly occur.
Outside of that, until there's a problem, likely management won't do more.
One memorable experience I had was doing support by telephone from a gas station way out in the Utah desert. A challenge. 😉
...
-- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers --
March 13, 2018 at 9:21 am
jasona.work - Tuesday, March 13, 2018 7:40 AM...I think the biggest challenge to me being the sole DBA is going to be this year, though, in August, when I'm taking a 2 week vacation and travelling down south. I don't plan to take my work laptop along, although I may take my work phone along...
Yep... did that in November, but had to take my work laptop with me too. Fortunately I only had to take care of 2 issues the week I was out of state. I try to document everything and anything database related in our IT department's Wiki, and the day before my last day I always put together a list of routine stuff, known issues and how to handle them, where I store all my "magic" scripts that no-one else seems to understand, and the third party password manager file location. I still get questions though.
I've put a lot of effort to improving the database ecosystem, and when I started people didn't have a good view of things. The first 3 months here was difficult as I wrestled the octopus to get things to a manageable level, but once I did it allowed me to focus on being able to help the developers better learn SQL to improve their applications and make things run smoother so that people weren't always upset with performance and problems.
March 13, 2018 at 9:58 am
Sometimes the best reliability is redundancy. Having another person on a team or another team who is cross trained for coverage.
March 13, 2018 at 11:05 am
jay-h - Tuesday, March 13, 2018 9:05 AMOne memorable experience I had was doing support by telephone from a gas station way out in the Utah desert. A challenge. 😉
My most memorable one was shopping for bedroom furniture in a large store in Denver on a Saturday evening. On-call guy was a VM specialist and didn't know how to restore a db complex db with multiple files, move, etc. I lay down on a sample bed, with my wife, as I walked him through the process as my remote hands.
March 13, 2018 at 11:12 am
There are most databases at my current job, than I am aware of. Overall, I would say that the DBA's here are highly thought of. The databases run as expected, are there as needed and provide data when necessary.
As to the main, or only knowledgeable person on a software system or database, I do see that here. But in fairness to my current employer, I've seen it elsewhere as well. I confess that in my early career I wanted to be the only person who know project/database XYZ. For some reason I thought it made me more highly valued and I was threaten by bosses in the past who wanted me to cross train other people. Thank God I've given up on the whole sole owner/expert on system XYZ.
Kindest Regards, Rod Connect with me on LinkedIn.
March 13, 2018 at 11:17 am
Rod at work - Tuesday, March 13, 2018 11:12 AM.... For some reason I thought it made me more highly valued and I was threaten by bosses in the past who wanted me to cross train other people. Thank God I've given up on the whole sole owner/expert on system XYZ.
So true. Team players are the most valuable employees, and good managers realize this.
...
-- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers --
March 13, 2018 at 12:19 pm
Chris Harshman - Tuesday, March 13, 2018 9:21 AMjasona.work - Tuesday, March 13, 2018 7:40 AM...I think the biggest challenge to me being the sole DBA is going to be this year, though, in August, when I'm taking a 2 week vacation and travelling down south. I don't plan to take my work laptop along, although I may take my work phone along...Yep... did that in November, but had to take my work laptop with me too. Fortunately I only had to take care of 2 issues the week I was out of state. I try to document everything and anything database related in our IT department's Wiki, and the day before my last day I always put together a list of routine stuff, known issues and how to handle them, where I store all my "magic" scripts that no-one else seems to understand, and the third party password manager file location. I still get questions though.
I've put a lot of effort to improving the database ecosystem, and when I started people didn't have a good view of things. The first 3 months here was difficult as I wrestled the octopus to get things to a manageable level, but once I did it allowed me to focus on being able to help the developers better learn SQL to improve their applications and make things run smoother so that people weren't always upset with performance and problems.
Worst case my bosses figure they can call on the Oracle DBA who worked with me and backstopped me for a while, but that has it's own issues (cross-department time charges, etc...) and so might be a "last resort" call.
When I started with my current employer, the previous DBAs (who were more Oracle-oriented) had left about a month or so before I started, and there was no DBA to hand things off to me. So that was a rough couple months until I got a handle on what was where, doing what, and the why. Just in time to have to migrate everything to new servers...
:crazy:
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