So, this last week I had the opportunity to speak and attend at the SQLbits conference. This was high on my list after attending an Oracle event last year where even attendees and organizers there mentioned that they admired the conference and the way that it was run. I fully admit to running the full gambit of either hyper-aware or completely oblivious and with SQLBits, I’d been a bit of the latter and I wanted to change that. Now I want to preface this post with saying that I refer to this month as “March madness” and that means that…
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AI has become a buzzword synonymous with the future of technology and innovation. However, the advancement of AI is not just about algorithms and computing power; it’s fundamentally about data. The adage “data is the new oil” has never been more pertinent than in the context of AI. But why is data so crucial for AI, and how do relational databases and data lakes fit into this narrative? The Importance of Data for AI AI learns and evolves through data. Machine Learning (ML), a subset of AI, involves training models on data to enable them to make predictions or decisions…
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Each person’s experience with a diagnosis is going to be as unique as the individual and when it comes to ADHD, this is exceptionally true. Although diagnosis gave me an answer and a sense of relief, it also caused me confusion when I was presented with common challenges that ADHD folks experience. I was diagnosed after the age of 40, which means I had over three decades to build out coping mechanisms, accommodations/work arounds or simply battled an ADHD tendency into surrender. These are the traits that I neatly fit into the box when someone imagines ADHD: Folks with ADHD…
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I’ve recently become a Co-organizer for the Data Platform DEI community, representing women in technology and individuals with Autism/ADHD. I’m joining some awesome people in the Microsoft community- Tracy Boggiano, Deepthi Goguri and Kay Sauter. Today, I want to share more about my journey with Autism/ADHD (AuDHD), a condition that made me feel different from my peers since childhood and led to challenges such as bullying. Understanding and embracing this aspect of my diversity has been a continuous journey and where I wanted to be anyone other than me as a child, that’s a distant memory and I can’t imagine…
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It’s almost my turn to present my video this year on December 13th, for the 2023 Festive Tech Calendar. I chose to do something fun vs. something about the cloud or databases, etc. This blog post has all the support info on the spinning Xmas tree, along with the RPI playing Xmas music and flashing Xmas colored lights, while the video goes into everything about the Raspberry Pi, why contribute to this year’s event donation and my project demo. Project Goal To use a Lego Xmas tree, attach it to a DC motor and use code with a Raspberry PI…
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Along with presenting the keynote at SQL Saturday Oregon this weekend, I will be taking the SQL Train up to PASS Summit for the next week’s conference. I will be on the WIT panel, as well as presenting with Chris Yates in a Professional Power Hour: Journey to Management on how to transition from a technical role to management. As much as I enjoy the technical aspect of my career, it was a careful navigation for me to ensure that my neurodiverse self was fulfilled as I moved up the ladder to my current Director position at Silk. If you’re…
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One undeniable truth is that we often lean towards what’s familiar to us. Open-source solutions might be cost-effective and supported by their enthusiastic communities, but there’s a correlation between value and investment. Enterprise relational systems, backed by substantial licensing revenues, can afford to innovate and introduce advanced features—capabilities that sometimes surpass what open-source can offer. However, it’s essential to understand that not every application necessarily demands an enterprise-level relational database. Amidst the evolving narrative about AI/ML’s potential to replace our jobs and the rising prominence of object storage seemingly poised to replace traditional database systems, one principle remains: “We gravitate…
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I’ve been pretty busy with work and travel, but I finally got an official Silk Github repository to publish a couple new white papers and sizing assessment worksheets for customer access. These are primarily Oracle and SQL Server to Azure focused white papers, but I will be publishing ones on GCP next, to be followed by AI and other database platforms soon. White Papers The A2Z on Oracle for Azure The A2Z on SQL Server to the Cloud The slides for the session that is part of the research that went into the white paper above can be found here. …
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It happens, someone has a good idea and unfortunately, theory is better than reality and it just creates more frustration than functionality. I’ve been wanting to blog about Technology gaffs for quite a while and I’ll put them in the category of rants, and hopefully folks can chime in with their own opinions… 🙂 for this week’s rant, I’ll discuss how LinkedIn, just like every other product in the friggin’ world, decided it needed to incorporate AI into their customer interface. For anyone wanting to post, you get the following opportunity to write a few ideas or prompts and AI…
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Here is what’s going on for me at Silk for the month of August! I’ve served in the role as Director of Technical Advocacy at Silk for just over 2 months. It’s been a productive months, helping out with Oracle, SQL Server, PostgreSQL and other workloads on Azure and Google Cloud interested in running with Silk. I love the energy from each of the teams at the company and enjoy the opportunity to contribute to all the different aspects of the business here. I want to thank the sales teams for keeping me engaged. I also would like to curse…
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I attended a presentation by Paul Turley on Microsoft Fabric this week and was fascinated when he told me he’d created a ton of test data through ChatGPT. This is another great use of AI to allow us technologists to do more with less. Gone are the olden days of sample databases with sample datasets or us having to create our own, we can have ChatGPT just generate it for us. To see how easy it is, I thought I’d show you an example and tell you how I did it, as it was done in reverse of what it’s…
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Five years? Really? Yes, it’s been five years since I joined Microsoft and I can honestly say, it’s been a blast! I’ve been doing the odd-year anniversary posts- 1, 3 and now 5 years at Microsoft. What are some of the top reasons to work at Microsoft from my own experience? Great managers. I’ve had, overall, the best direct managers of any company, while here at Microsoft. I really appreciate the great training they give Microsoft management and I think it does help ensure that you have managers that are present to make your workday better. Cool benefits- I can’t…
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This is a continuation of the evolution of AI with ChatGPT and how much it can be leveraged, allowing me to do more with less time. As a DBA, many times I’m copying and pasting past versions of code, then making changes to do what needs to be done each day. the idea that ChatGPT could do some of this FOR ME is very attractive. It’s still in its infancy, but I’m thrilled to say, it’s getting better every day and you get out of it what you put in….as in prompts. This week, one of my prompts with the…
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I always like to start with something easy, or at least easy for me… 🙂 ChatGPT, using GPT4 is moving fast and at this point, we can test it to generate code that will replace much of what I would write in a BASH, Python or PowerShell script. The prompt in ChatGPT was as follows: “Deploy Oracle 19.3 image on an Azure VM, using an E8ds_v5 SKU, with P6 for the OS Disk in EastUS2 in Azure CLI using BASH” ChatGPT is good about using natural language in it’s output to parse through each step and include the code that…
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*Previously posted on the Data Architecture Blog in the Microsoft Tech Community. The Well-Architected Framework for Oracle has been published! Oracle workloads – Microsoft Azure Well-Architected Framework | Microsoft Learn This invaluable framework provides clear guidance on the recommended practices to assess, architect and migrate Oracle workloads to the Azure cloud. This should be the first place for answers to success for Oracle on Azure! A special thanks to my teammate, Jessica Haessler for working so hard to help me get this to the finish line, as I would have never been able to get this done on my own!
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*Previously posted on the Microsoft Data Architecture Blog for the Tech Community High IO workloads in Azure are a topic of common interest and of those workloads, Oracle Exadata tops the list. I’m going to begin to post about how the Oracle on Azure SMEs in the Cloud Architecture and Engineering team handle those. Exadata is a unique beast- it’s not an appliance or a single database, but an engineered system. It is a collection of hardware and software intelligence designed to run Oracle workloads, especially those with high IO, efficiently. I’ve built out a high level Exadata architecture and added…
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There are only a few Oracle on Azure SMEs out there. OK, let’s be honest, the majority of the brain power is living in one floating home in Portland, Oregon and that’s not a good thing in many ways. It’s always difficult to specialize in a non-native solution at any company, but Microsoft is such an awesome place to be employed and our work is so critical to the overall success to Azure migrations that I’m very happy to do what I do. To help scale, I blog whenever I can on the questions that I most commonly end up…
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First things first- The following opinions expressed in this post are my own and in no way connected to my employer. I’m getting slaughtered with questions about the multiple news stories and releases on the announcement for the Oracle Database Service for Azure, which is a rebrand and updated OCI Interconnect with an Azure Portal overlay in OCI. It allows the customer to deploy and monitor an Oracle Autonomous database or ExaCC and then have the application tier in Azure. This is touted as a multi-cloud solution, and I’m going to write this post and point people to it with…