Lost in Translation

There was an interesting blog post this week an SQL Server and how it's NUMA (non-uniform memory access) architecture works, and while it's fairly detailed, and it gives a lot of information, it's also missing something.

Now I'm sure it's a great explanation, in line with some of the other NUMA writings I've seen on MSDN and in Slava Ok's blog. I don't completely understand how it works, at least not in a way I could explain it back to you. I have a feel for what is happening, but I'll admit that I'm somewhat lost in places and could be completely confused.

What it's missing, however, and what I'd like to see, is how this impacts our database server performance and application. For example, this note (One point of emphasis is that soft NUMA disables the buffer pools use of memory locality) is in italics. What does that mean for a server? It would be nice to see a link or short note on the implications of this.

Even more importantly, since many people like to use the slider to configure memory, what does this mean? This means that you should always make sure the configured memory is evenly divisible and installed evenly among logical and physical nodes.

It would seem to me that this would imply that you want to configure memory in a certain way, but this sentence if left open to interpretation. I appreciate the deep dives, but they need to come with some common sense guidelines.

No More Local Admins

Now this is an interesting directive: the Federal Desktop Core Configuration directive takes effect at the end of this week, Feb 1. This mandates that no users can have local admin rights, which is probably a good thing.

However it goes further in requiring the vendors make their applications work without these local admin rights. It's a great idea and perhaps the very large US government will start to have an impact on Windows and other MS software. I can definitely see that Express/MSDE users and applications using these pieces of software are going to have to be built with less rights required.

You don't need local administrative rights to run SQL Server, and you should certainly learn how to avoid this. Just as you should avoid running applications with "sa", which is a standard I'd like to see enforced as much as avoiding local administrative rights.

Too Much Money

Is too much money in IT a problem? This blog post seems to think so. It's from Raymond Lewallen, a very well known MVP, software developer and respected Windows expert. He says that with lots of money available for IT projects, we can work with mediocre developers, have poorly written projects that fail, and we go on.

Is there a lack of incentive for programmers to improve their skills, write better code, strive to be excellent when they can make great money being average. It's certainly an argument to think about? I've heard similar arguments about sports teams, and the problems coaching them, trying to get them to improve and work harder when they're succeeding already.

I've always been a person that believes in results and effectiveness. If you can achieve success with being average, is that a problem? Do you need to be driven to constantly strive to be the "best?" I certainly don't have that high drive anymore. I'm content and happy where I am, making incremental improvements, learning more, but not driven like some of the highly successful SQL Server professionals I know.

I think that the high paychecks from IT are both a curse and a blessing. It does allow mediocrity to succeed, but it also allows the average to make a good living at something they enjoy.

Steve Jones

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**Steve's Pick of the Week**
Why Launch Katmai Delayed until Q3 I got fooled again, thinking that no matter what Microsoft would release SQL Server 2008 in Q2, likely at TechEd. Apparently that's not the case and while CTP looks like a late Feb release that will be feature complete, apparently it's not close enough to release in Q2. So July-Sept? Or will they just wait until the PDC, the BI Conference, or maybe PASS. One thing's for certain, they shouldn't bother launching it in February.

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Lost in Translation