December 25, 2013 at 8:30 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the item It's not the platform
December 26, 2013 at 5:35 am
AMEN!! A sentiment much of the IT world could put into practice, and not just with database platforms.
The general lack of such an attitude on SSC is what makes reading through forums, articles, etc. a part of my day I look forward to. Heck, I even log into my work email from home on days off just to see what's up in the newsletter. There's been some spirited debates and discussions on various topics to be sure, but they've been overwhelmingly respectful. I see extremely little of the "if you don't agree with me, you're an idiot" type of posts. That tells me I'm dealing with a group that understands what professionalism really means, to say nothing of just plain old-fashioned politeness. And that is exceptional given that many folks here can and do make a fair chunk of change consulting and yet still take the time to graciously answer the questions we bratty little children pester them with on a daily basis :-).
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Just my $0.02 from over here in the cheap seats of the peanut gallery - please adjust for inflation and/or your local currency.
December 26, 2013 at 5:46 am
Why is it headline news that you agree with me, Steve? Are you saying you don't always agree with me, is that what you're saying? You'd better not be lying to me when you say you listen to Hall & Oates all day, every day just like I do. You're out of touch, I'm out of time.
December 26, 2013 at 6:27 am
Spot on Steve, and Brent, uh, and lshanahan! 🙂 I came from an Oracle world and was very pleased to find SSC, which was not rankerous in its discussions. I have never felt very comfortable in the religious platform -vs- platform discussion, and you have pointed out why, it is the people making the machine go Vrooom, not the machine itself. I admit, I had not articulated that, even to myself, earlier.
<><
Livin' down on the cube farm. Left, left, then a right.
December 26, 2013 at 7:29 am
Steve is soooo very right on this one. Regardless of platform, the area where so many DBAs are lacking is just good old database design. An artist may have a full palette of colors, but if he doesn't understand (or is incapable of producing) good form, he may never be a great artist.
All too often, DBAs have a great knowledge of the nuts and bolts of a platform, but lack the necessary understanding of how to arrange them appropriately.
Asking the questions what are really trying to accomplish both immediately and in the not-too-distant future will often lead one to discover ways to create good database design.
Regards.
Rick
December 26, 2013 at 8:28 am
During many of the SQL Saturday presentations I make I allude to how AWESOME SQL Server is in that my 8 year old daughter can put in an install disk and click next-next-next and she will have a functioning database platform. And she can insert a 3rd party application install disk and click next-next-next and she now has a functioning database application using that SQL Server. And the pair will just keep right on storing and serving up data with default everything, and do so quite nicely. No knowledge whatsoever required.
Then I say that if you are LUCKY, your company will reach a certain level of need for SLA, response time, concurrency, throughput, uptime, etc. and then you just GOT to start doing some things right and stop doing other things sub-optimally to get where you need to be. But again, we have such an AWESOME platform to work with because there are SOOOO many things that can be done with it where BOOM - order of magnitude improvement ... BAM - another order of magnitude improvement ... POW - another 50% improvement.
I have never touched Oracle, DB2, MySQL, etc. but I would expect they are quite similar in all respects. Well, maybe not the 8 yo next-next-next installation. :w00t:
Best,
Kevin G. Boles
SQL Server Consultant
SQL MVP 2007-2012
TheSQLGuru on googles mail service
December 26, 2013 at 8:50 am
I agree with Steve that training is more important than the platform. It's not hard to become a novice at any of them. In my experience it does seem to take longer to become proficient in Oracle though. I find that their documentation is a little harder to work through. Less wizards as well. In the end this is probably better though as it requires you to know a little more about the nuts and bolts versus just clicking a button in a wizard and letting the software do it all for you.
I would also say that the setup of Oracle definitely takes more time to get right. I have to install Oracle client tools on some of our servers for connectivity to other servers in our network. The Oracle install is always a bit painful and we often have to tweak folder settings and such to get everything to communicate properly. I have never had as much trouble installing SQL Server or connecting to a remote SQL Server.
So in the end, I think you can get up to speed with a working DB faster with SQL Server which is why a lot of people seem to prefer it if they do not already have a RDBMS in place. Also cost has historically been a large factor in choosing SQL Server over Oracle. I haven't done this comparison for a while though so I don't know if that is still a major factor or not. This still does not make SQL Server better than Oracle, I think it just makes it a bit more approachable.
December 26, 2013 at 9:00 am
Brent Ozar (12/26/2013)
Why is it headline news that you agree with me, Steve? Are you saying you don't always agree with me, is that what you're saying? You'd better not be lying to me when you say you listen to Hall & Oates all day, every day just like I do. You're out of touch, I'm out of time.
We probably agree more than we disagree, but in this case I thought I'd point it out to others.
I haven't listened to, dressed like, or had hair like, H&O in a long time, though my wife likes their music.
December 26, 2013 at 9:30 am
Very true Steve. Part of SQL Server's problem is also its strength. By making SQL Server "easy" MS has ensured that there will be many "accidental DBA's" working with their product.
When was the last time you ever ran into an accidental Oracle DBA? I'm sure they exist, but they are few in number because if a business opts to go with Oracle, they generally do so with the expectation that they need specialist expertise to manage it.
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If most people are not willing to see the difficulty, this is mainly because, consciously or unconsciously, they assume that it will be they who will settle these questions for the others, and because they are convinced of their own capacity to do this. -Friedrich August von Hayek
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December 26, 2013 at 9:37 am
DCPeterson (12/26/2013)
Very true Steve. Part of SQL Server's problem is also its strength. By making SQL Server "easy" MS has ensured that there will be many "accidental DBA's" working with their product.When was the last time you ever ran into an accidental Oracle DBA? I'm sure they exist, but they are few in number because if a business opts to go with Oracle, they generally do so with the expectation that they need specialist expertise to manage it.
Thank you for so eloquently summarizing my position on this! 😀
December 26, 2013 at 10:42 am
A DBA I know changed jobs to a new company in the fall of last year. He is a tuner and a good guy that gets involved with how things run and fixes them. He does DB2, SQL Server and Oracle. The company he went to work for is a well known retailer. Their Thanksgiving/Christmas holiday last year was a fire fighting exercise to keep the systems up and running. He told me that he has never seen anything like it. This year they didn't have any problems at all. He spent the last 12 months tuning all of their systems that experienced problems over last years holidays. He emailed me yesterday saying that their systems ran better than they ever had and he was getting a ton of pats on the back for a job well done.
December 26, 2013 at 10:48 am
anyone can setup SQL Server and get it to run. Until it doesn't.
Education and investment in knowledge is one of the most important areas that technologies and their employers can spend time and money on.
Two critical points that I talk to people about quite frequently. I lean more heavily on the second point. Training and education in the product is important. But it doesn't end - education and training need to continue or mistakes will be made. Somebody will rely on knowledge that is for the version of SQL Server (or DBMS of your choice) from 15 years ago. In many cases that knowledge won't apply anymore and it can cause issues.
Jason...AKA CirqueDeSQLeil
_______________________________________________
I have given a name to my pain...MCM SQL Server, MVP
SQL RNNR
Posting Performance Based Questions - Gail Shaw[/url]
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December 31, 2013 at 4:51 pm
True, the IT staff makes the difference, but the management makes the IT staff. Should you be in a hapless IT staff position with a Fortune 1000 company that just focuses on Wall Street metrics, my apologies (I have been there). You can count on the staffing problems to only get worse year over year. Seriously, you should consider changing jobs -- and that is where the particular DBMS comes into play.
I started out as a mainframe DBA going back to the 1980s (hierarchical databases). I went on to mainframe DB2, Unix, and SQL Server. The best change I made was leaving Big Iron. Why? Not because of the technology. DB2 is by far has the greatest ability to scale, has true continuous availability (I don't play games with the definition of "24x7"), and simplicity. The reason I left it was it is a victim of its own success.
Big companies use mainframes (the market is actually growing in the Far East and south Asia) and big companies are getting more and more oppressive. More and more (including our favorite software vendor) have adopted the "rank and yank" approach to the annual performance review. Ranking has been around forever as a management requisite, but it is the yanking that is being now being crudely done. In the name of quality, management has to rate a certain percentage of the staff as under-performers. After a couple of years of this, you are let go (to meet Wall Street financial targets). The problem is it works just the opposite -- it generates mediocrity.
If you are locked into the mainframe, you will probably be locked into the "rank and yank" for the rest of your career because you will only change to another large company with the same mentality. If you are locked into Unix, you still might find this happening, but less so. If you are in SQL Server, there are plenty of small to medium companies to go to.
Am I cynical? Not really. I am really trying to give you some options. Smaller companies are more personality based (rather than process-model based), so you will have to find the company that matches your personality. Once you do, I think you will make the most out of you database career. Afterwards, you will probably agree with me that the platform really doesn't make that much difference.
December 31, 2013 at 5:03 pm
jim.drewe (12/31/2013)
True, the IT staff makes the difference, but the management makes the IT staff.If you are locked into the mainframe, you will probably be locked into the "rank and yank" for the rest of your career because you will only change to another large company with the same mentality. If you are locked into Unix, you still might find this happening, but less so. If you are in SQL Server, there are plenty of small to medium companies to go to.
I went from a medium sized bank to a health care SW company. I have always been able to program but am more of a production DBA type. Troubleshoot slowness. Make sure the query gives the right results. If it isn't -- find out why. Is it a GIGO reason or bad programming?
But if the production DBA is muzzled from telling the truth none of it gets better. Additionally if the user DBA is restricted from communicating the errors back to the originating SW company it is just as bad.
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Jim P.
A little bit of this and a little byte of that can cause bloatware.
January 2, 2014 at 5:37 am
This is so true with much of IT. I have a development stack that has been selected more through successive clients' choices than any selections of my own.
As far as I am concerned all software is not good enough yet some software makes a reasonable attempt and is worth utilising. SQL Server and Oracle (to name the ones used in the editorial) are lacking in various areas or for various conditions so we look to updates and upgrades for improvements yet we are satisfied enough to deploy and use them.
I love that here the trolls get trolled. Great community full of open minded individuals with a wide range of ever changing experience, knowledge and abilities.
Gaz
-- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!
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