Just a quick blurb to say I’m excited to be going back to Nashville in January, 2020. I’ll be presenting my “Database People and DevOps” session. This is a great event, and I’m excited to return.
Looks like a fantastic lineup as well; if you haven’t registered yet, you can do so here:
https://www.sqlsaturday.com/933/Sessions/Schedule.aspx
Excited to announce that I was chosen to present my session “Database People and DevOps: The Fundamentals” at SQLSaturday Baton Rouge 2019 this August. Very excited to head back close to home this year; I actually attended LSU graduate school for a year before transferring to UGA, so the campus holds a dear place in my heart. SQLSaturday Baton Rouge appears to have grown a lot since the last time I was there, so I’m hoping I can pick ups some ideas for our event in 2020.
This is a fun session for me, and I’ve got some revisions to make after delivering it in Atlanta. I hope folks find it informative, and I give lots of references for future study. This is a summary class, which means I cover a lot of topics at a high level, but I like to build a framework for future study.
Y’all come.
My supplies for my workshop!
On Saturday, May 19, 2018 at SQL Saturday Atlanta, I won’t just be an organizer; I’m a presenter! My session, “All (Data) Things Considered: The Lean Coffee Workshop” is something I’m very excited to “present”. I use that term loosely, because the whole point of a lean coffee workshop is that it’s a structured, but agenda-less discussion. I participated in one of these at the DevOps Enterprise Summit in 2017, and it was a fun, and inspiring way to engage with other people who were facing very similar problems as I was.
The way it works is that there will be a brief introduction at the beginning of the session, but people are expected to form several small groups. A seed topic will be presented, but each small group will have a moderator (and thanks to my volunteers) who will make sure that their group stays on track. Every group will:
That’s it. Easiest presentation I’ve ever done, but the goals are really deep. I want to encourage people to engage with each other; that’s one of the original goals of SQLSaturday, and I think traditional classroom settings don’t do enough of that (conversations are usually instructor -> audience, or audience -> instructor). This puts people around a table in a small, safe environment, and that leads to long term possibilities for relationships.
Second, I’m more interested in conversations about improving work, rather than just how to do work. I think coffee talks foster that because you’re not looking at a tool or a piece of code; you’re talking to a person, and hearing what they think. That sharing of perspective can spark new ideas, and new ways of looking at the forest, rather than individual trees.
Looking forward to seeing you there!
I haven’t posted much about SQL Saturday Atlanta in a while; things are moving along, and the event is coming back to Alpharetta (albeit a new building) on May 19, 2018. Lots of folks are busy behind the scenes preparing, but there’s a few key things to keep in mind:
Exciting times ahead; stay tuned. As always, SQL Saturday Atlanta is brought to you by AtlantaMDF; SQL Server meetings every month on the second Monday.
There’s been some interesting conversation on the SQLSaturday slack channel regarding the admin tools for SQLSaturday. It was spawned, in part, by this great set of ideas proposed by the Godfather of SQL Saturday, Andy Warren, regarding changing the way that software development for the tools is handled by PASS HQ:
“So if that is all the way on one side of the scale (super closed system), the far other side is to open source it. Open source is also not simple. If you’re on the PASS Board you have to care about the potential loss of intellectual property. Scoff do you? No, there is no magic in the code, but it’s sweat equity and it’s a substantial part of what drives new members (and new email addresses for existing members) into the mailing list. Do you really want people forking it and spawning variations under different names?
Is there a middle ground? Sure. Let’s put together a straw man of what it might look like:
- PASS puts the source code into a private Github repo (because all devs love git!) along with a masked data set they can load/restore
- Write an agreement to get access to the source code and agree to not republish the code, plus convey to PASS the IP rights to new stuff
- Write the governance process. This is the hardest piece. Who will approve pull requests? Who decides which features get added? Who will do the testing? How often will releases be done (since PASS has to coordinate that)? Code standards. Rules about fonts and logos – all the stuff you deal with any dev shop.
- Down the road a little build a true dev environment where the latest code can be loaded and tested.”
It should be noted that Andy wrote (or oversaw) most of the original code for the SQLSaturday admin tools, so he’s no crackpot; he knows software development, he knows SQLSaturday, and he knows how to get things done. In fact, as I was writing this post, I went back and read some of my original posts about SQLSaturday #13 (back in 2009), I found myself reminiscing about all the advice he’s given to me (and countless others); when Andy proposes something, it’s usually a good idea to listen. And, when Andy says he wants feedback, he means it.
So here’s my feedback, based on the events I’ve helped run (I’ve lost count; it’s somewhere around 15); I question whether PASS needs to be in the admin tools game at all. 2018 is a very different landscape than 2007 (the very first SQL Saturday). Tools like EventBrite, Meetup, PaperCall.io, and Sched.com can provide a lot of the support required for the daily activities of running a SQLSaturday. Most are free for smaller events. All come without the cost of maintenance and support that are currently required to run the current admin site. By the way, I think the current tools are fine, but there do seem to be some ongoing reliability issues.
I brought this up on the Slack channel, and Steve Jones had some great counter arguments, including issues with integration and the recurring cost of these tools. I’m not sure that integration is an issue; I think that events have four different audiences, with four different needs:
I’m not sure that having a single system to try and do everything is needed. I can envision PASS setting up a website and an email address, and then sponsors using a tool like Eventbrite to manage registrations. They can supply those email lists to PASS after the event to be imported into PASS’s databases. They can use a tool like Sched.com to manage speakers calls and build schedules. Eventbrite can be used to build the equivalent of Speedpass natively.
Thoughts?
I’ve been meaning to write this post for a while, but life rolls on, as it always does. I had the privilege of attending DevOpsDays Atlanta back in April. This was my second DevOpDays event to attend (the first being Nashville), and overall, I’ve enjoyed the events. However, as a long-time organizer and speaker with the SQL Saturday events, it’s hard for me not to compare my experiences between the two conferences. They’re both community-run, low-cost, voluntary technical events; however, there were some things that I really like about the DevOpsDays format (and some things I wish were different).
The cost models of the two conferences are different; in short, SQLSaturday’s are free to the attendees (although a lunch fee is usually provided as an optional service), and DevOpsDays charges a small fee ($99-$150). Both rely on sponsors to pick up the tab for the bulk of the expenses (usually location fees). Speakers are volunteers, as well as event management staff. The benefit for the attendee is guaranteed swag (an event t-shirt is typical) and a great lunch (food was fantastic at DevOpsDaysAtlanta).
Charging a higher fee does a couple of things; it allows organizers to get a more accurate attendance estimate; if an attendee pays more to go to a conference, it’s more likely that they’ll show up. This has a trickle effect on luring sponsors; it’s easier to justify sponsoring an event if you know that you’re going to get a certain amount of foot traffic. A fee also guarantees amenities that are important to technical folk; good Wifi, and livestreams (although sessions weren’t recorded at the Atlanta DevOpsDays event). You can also direct some of those funds to getting a premier meeting space.
On the other hand, a free event with a nominal lunch has the potential of bringing in a much larger audience; DevOpsDays Atlanta was hosted in a 230-seat theatre, so attendance was probably around 250 (with standing room, vendors, and speakers). Last year’s Atlanta SQL Saturday had over 600 attendees, and this year’s event had slightly over 500 attendees. Attendance counts shouldn’t be considered a metric of superiority, but it does provide a different incentive for pursuing sponsors. As an attendee, I like the SQLSaturday model; as an organizer, I like the DevOpsDays model.
DevOpsDays is a highly decentralized model (true to the agile underpinnings of the movement). The parent organization appears (from the outside) to be very hands off; local event organizers handle their own sponsorships, registration, and other details. This allows for a lot of fluidity when it comes to branding, networking, etc. For example, see the differences in advertising logos for the DevOpsDays organization, the Atlanta 2017 event, and the upcoming Nashville 2017 event:
| DEVOPSDAYS (GENERIC) | ATLANTA 2017 | NASHVILLE 2017 |
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In contrast, PASS (the Professional Association for SQL Server) retains tight control over the marketing of SQLSaturday; registrations and event planning are handled by their internally-developed tools, and the branding has recently evolved to provide a more consistent association with the parent organization (although not without some concerns).
| PASS LOGO | SQLSATURDAY LOGO |
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From an attendee perspective, branding probably doesn’t make much of a difference; however, the tools used for registration are highly visible. Both DevOpsDays events I attended used EventBrite, a well know tool for managing, well, events. SQLSaturday relies on a custom registration site that has improved over time, but still often leaves attendees confused (despite all the best guidance from organizers). Furthermore, if a SQLSaturday event has a precon, those events are usually managed by EventBrite, which leads to an additional disconnect between the precon event and the actual SQLSaturday. Despite my love for SQLSaturdays, I think the DevOpsDays approach to branding and tooling is better.
One area that SQLSaturday feels more comfortable to me is the format of the sessions. SQLSaturdays typically follow the traditional multi-track model in a single day (not counting pre-cons), where attendees can choose from multiple sessions at the same time; for example, SQLSaturday Atlanta 2017 had 10 concurrent tracks, each with sessions lasting about an hour. Note that this format is not required; smaller events may only have a single track, or have multiple tracks with longer sessions.
In contrast, the DevOpsDays standard of delivery is multiple days, with a single track in the morning of longer talks, followed by a single-track of short talks (“Ignites“), and then open-space sessions in the afternoon. For me, this is a mixed bag of effectiveness; bringing everyone in the conference together to hear the same discussion can (in theory) promote better cross-communication between the various stakeholders in the DevOps audience. For example, having managers and deployment specialists hear a programmer discussing pipelines may promote perspective-taking, one of the fundamentals of good communication. In reality, however, my experience has been that many presenters don’t do a great job of relating to all of the stakeholders in the audience, making it difficult to bridge that gap. Granted, I’ve only been to two events, but of the 16 main talks that I heard across the two events, about half of them seemed relevant to me. Ignites have some of the same limitations, but the time constraints mean that they hold attention spans for longer.
Most people either love or hate open spaces; letting the audience drive discussions is a great concept in theory; in reality, discussions are typically dominated by a few extroverts in the group, and most people merely observe. Although there are usually self-appointed moderators, the dynamic selection of topics just prior to the discussion makes it difficult to engage or guide. When they work, they work well; however, too often open spaces lend themselves to the seven-minute lull Ideally, I think the most effective method of delivery would be a blended approach; a couple of keynote sessions in the morning, followed by a few Ignite sessions. Do multiple tracks in the afternoon, including open-space discussion, both free-form and guided. However, this is mostly a matter of personal preference; I’d love to try it and see what people think of it.
I’m enjoying the transition of my career away from being a SQL Person to a DevOps person; both communities seem vibrant and engaged, and I plan on attending more DevOpsDays conferences in the future (and perhaps even help with planning one). Events like these offer a lot of opportunity to learn high-quality material in a low-cost setting, and I only expect them to get better (or I’ll get better) over time.
Last weekend was SQLSaturday Atlanta 2017, and I was not only an organizer, but a presenter. In the future, I’ll need to balance that a little better (especially when we’re dealing with a lot of unknowns for the day, like a new building). Overall, I think my presentation went well; had a lot of great hallway conversations with folks later, and got some good feedback. You can find the slide deck here, or look on the Code, etc tab above.
However, during my presentation, a couple of questions came up that I didn’t have a great answer for; mostly it was revolving around the first bullet point on this slide:
Why, if DevOps as a philosophy encourages better communication between development and operations, do I believe that there will be increased segregation between those roles? I fumbled for an answer during the presentation, but then went back and realized what I left out in my explanation, so I thought I’d take a stab at rebuilding my argument and explain where I was going with this:
Services logically represent business activities; they are self-contained, and the inner workings of each service are opaque to the consumers. Services can be built using other services, but that rule of opacity stays true; when you consume a service, you don’t care what it’s doing under the covers. It just has to provide a consistent output when given a consistent input.
Software-as-a-Service is built on a Platform-as-a-Service, which is in turn built on an Infrastructure-as-a-Service. Communication between service layers must be consistent and repeatable, but processes and procedures within each services should be opaque. Furthermore, the consumers of a service are not the same; for example, if you have a web portal displaying account information to a client. The client consumes Software-as-a-Service; they just want to see their account information. They don’t care how many servers are involved or how the network is laid out. Software-as-a-Service consumes from the Platform layer; they may have a requirement that they use a particular database system, or OS, but specific configuration isn’t exposed to them. Software engineers define performance expectations (e.g, “we need to commit 1000 transactions per second”), and leave it up to the Platform (and Infrastructure) engineers to meet that expectation.
From this slide, I outline the general breakdown between skills:
Basically, I believe that traditional development skills belong to the Software-as-a-Service Layer, and traditional administration skills belong to the Platfom layer.
So by segregation of responsibilities, I mean that as companies embrace the Cloud paradigm, the current role of a DBA will fork into both Software-as-a-Service engineering (Dev) and Platform-as-a-Service engineering (Ops). I need to clarify that thought more in future presentations, because I may be using those terms differently than others would.
Thanks for reading, and if you attended, thanks for coming!
-Stu
Been really freaking busy the last few months, so I haven’t had the chance to share the news of a few upcoming presentations:
On October 10, I’ll be presenting at the Orlando SQLSaturday, doing my session on a DBA’s guide to Hadoop. I’ll be representing that session at the Professional Association for SQL Server Summit in Seattle (October 27-30).
Brief service announcement is over; now I can say I’ve blogged recently.
SQL Saturday #285 is offering 3 preconference sessions on Friday, May 2 at the GSU campus in Alpharetta, site of SQL Saturday #285 on Saturday, May 3:
Kalen Delaney: What the Hekaton!? A Whole New Way to Think About Data Management
SQL Server Hekaton, Microsoft’s new In-Memory table technology being shipped as part of SQL Server 2014, will completely change the way you think about data management. As a DBA, you’ll need to analyze your memory and storage needs completely differently. All Hekaton data is always stored in memory, and the data stored on disk is basically just a REDO log used to regenerate the contents of your memory-optimized tables. In this full-day seminar, Kalen Delaney (a SQL Server MVP for over 20 years) will show you the in-memory architecture for your Hekaton data and indexes, and discuss what gets written to disk during checkpoints, as well as what gets logged. She will explain how the recovery process recreates your Hekaton tables. Finally, she’ll go into detail on just what it is that makes Hekaton so much FASTER!
Denny Cherry: SQL Performance Tuning & Optimization
In this session you will learn about SQL Server 2008 R2 and SQL Server 2012 performance tuning and optimization. Industry Expert Denny Cherry will guide you through tools and best practices for tuning queries and improving performance within Microsoft SQL Server. This session will guide you through real life performance problems which have been gathered and tuned using industry standard best practices and real world skills.
Teo Lachev: Deep Dive into the Microsoft BI Semantic Model (BISM)
The chances are that your organization has a centralized data repository, such as ODS or a data warehouse, but you might not use it to the fullest. Join this insightful full-day event to understand the importance of having a semantic layer that bridges users and data. In the Microsoft BI world, BISM consists of Power Pivot, Tabular, and Multidimensional.
All 3 presenters are published authors and Microsoft MVPs many times over. These sessions are a huge value to spend a day with an acknowledged SQL Server
thought leader.
Early registration is only $129 until March 1, when the price of any remaining seats will go up to $149. Follow @AtlantaMDF on Twitter and get a promo code for $10 off the early registration price (for Kalen Delaney or Denny Cherry)! We’ll tweet the promo code at 9am Thursday (Jan 23) – it’s only good for 10 uses (for each session), so be sure to check your Twitter feed tomorrow morning!
I realize that I should probably be blogging about my New Year’s resolutions, but meh… I’ve been super busy surviving the holidays. So busy in fact that I’ve failed to mention that I’ll be presenting at the SQLSaturday in Nashville on January 18, 2014. I actually got selected to present TWO topics, which is HUGE for me. Hoping that I can refine a presentation, and get ready for our own SQLSaturday in Atlanta.
Most database professionals know (from firsthand experience) that there continues to be a “data explosion”, and there’s been a lot of focus lately on “big data”. But what do you do when your data’s just kind of “biggish”? You’re managing Terabytes, not Petabytes, and you’re trying to squeeze out as much performance out of your aging servers as possible. The focus of this session is to identify some key guidelines for the design, management, and ongoing optimization of “larger-than-average” databases. Special attention will be paid to the following areas: * query design * logical and physical data structures * maintenance & backup strategies
I got promoted to management a year ago, and despite what I previously believed, there were no fluffy pillows and bottles of champagne awaiting me. My team liked me, but they didn’t exactly stoop and bow when I entered the room. I’ve spent the last year relearning everything I thought I knew about management, and what it means to be a manager of a technical team. This session is intended for new managers, especially if you’ve come from a database (or other technical) background; topics we’ll cover will include:*How to let go of your own solutions. *Why you aren’t the model you think you are, and *Why Venn diagrams are an effective tool for management.