October 22, 2024 at 5:10 am
SQL Server is the backbone of the product I've been developing for most of my career. I'm also in the 61 club. I've even mentioned that retirement is on my agenda in hopes of easing the transition for the product team and avoiding the total loss of my 30+ years of accumulated technical and business knowledge. The response was: You're never going to retire and you're never going to die so let's not talk about that again.
Besides my eventual removal from the picture, the product itself is built out of pieces developed in now-dead languages or using tools installable only on now-dead operating systems. These are all facts that I'm predicting will someday bring about the end of the product, perhaps suddenly. Our systems people are doing their part, upgrading O/S and related software, forcing SQL Server upgrades. The product team is doing what it can, limited as it is to two developers and no dedicated Q/A.
The sky is not falling today; I'm pretty sure it won't be a single planet-killer meteor. But I believe it's inevitable and the time for action may have already passed.
I understand Grant's article is being presented from a personal point of view with the goal of keeping yourself relevant. But how do you play your part in avoiding becoming extinct on a product or corporate level without being seen as Chicken Little?
Sitting in Greece as I type this, so I'm sure that's playing a part. Cassandra wasn't listened to either. Yet, Troy fell.
I don't have a good answer for you. I'd simply point to real world events. An editorial I wrote a few weeks back covered the collapse of the Amateur Radio Relay Leagues computing systems following a ransomware attack. They too were running on dead operating systems using dead databases and dead software. Recovery was extremely difficult (months, not weeks) in some cases, and seems to be impossible for others. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" does make an assumption. The assumption is, if it does break, it can be fixed, or at least easily replaced. Maybe proposing a recovery test. "How long will it take us to come back online if we lost it all." Assuming your test actually comes back online, the amount of time that takes can give you and the business a realistic assessment of just how scary a position you're currently in... or not. Maybe it's all fine. Maybe.
But, even with that information in hand, you may still be Cassandra. But based on what you're saying, you're absolutely not Chicken Little.
Good luck.
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore Roosevelt
Author of:
SQL Server Execution Plans
SQL Server Query Performance Tuning
October 22, 2024 at 7:14 am
As another over 65 with many years of SQL developing and DBA, I'm now lucky enough to work for a company that has decided to go over to AWS, S3 and Athena and take its staff along for the ride so training etc is there, even for those of us who have downsized to three or four days per week.
It's a fine adventure though I wish Fabric had been a couple of years sooner as the decision may have swung that way instead.
Never too old to learn!
October 25, 2024 at 8:26 pm
My thoughts:
I picked up SQL Server a point release after the author (6.1 v 6.0) While I had databases in school, I did not really know SQL. I had used Access at a previous position and relied heavily on the query builder to create my SQL. It was not until I had trouble getting the builder to do exactly what I wanted it to do that I really pressed in on learning SQL. Now I can say that I can make it do whatever I need it to do.
I say all that to say that business runs on data. While newer concepts are cool and can even be useful, I do not think we have much to worry about - which ever path we take - pressing in on the newer stuff like Fabric, etc or relying on tried and true methods. We need to be able to find that one set of records from among the million candidates. I believe our skills are transferable - someone will have to know how to traverse the fabric and that person will be a developer.
October 25, 2024 at 8:27 pm
My thoughts:
I picked up SQL Server a point release after the author (6.1 v 6.0) While I had databases in school, I did not really know SQL. I had used Access at a previous position and relied heavily on the query builder to create my SQL. It was not until I had trouble getting the builder to do exactly what I wanted it to do that I really pressed in on learning SQL. Now I can say that I can make it do whatever I need it to do.
I say all that to say that business runs on data. While newer concepts are cool and can even be useful, I do not think we have much to worry about - which ever path we take - pressing in on the newer stuff like Fabric, etc. or relying on tried and true methods. We need to be able to find that one set of records from among the million candidates. I believe our skills are transferable - someone will have to know how to traverse the fabric and that person will be a developer.
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