So to finish up my look back in 2025, I’ll dig into what I did outside of speaking and writing as my role as Advocate at Redgate. Advocacy, Mentorship, and Community Engagement While speaking and writing, 2025 reaffirmed the importance of advocacy and mentorship. I continued to support professionals navigating career transitions, offered guidance on neurodiversity and sustainability in tech, and contributed to inclusive, community-led events and initiatives reflected in my broader online presence and speaking engagements. I’m still co-organizer for the Data Platform DEI User Group in the Microsoft Community and am ramping up the PDX WIT Meetup in Portland, all while maintaining…
-
-
Collaboration has always been one of the hardest parts of my career, and not because people are incapable or unwilling, but more often due to conditions make good collaboration difficult for those challenged with neurodiversity. Remote work, distributed teams, time zones, conflicting priorities, overloaded calendars, along with , personality mismatches, unconscious bias, power dynamics, and differing communication styles all get in the way. Even when everyone has good intent, meaningful collaboration can feel fragile, exhausting, or inaccessible…especially in deeply technical roles where thinking time matters as much as meeting time. Over the years, I’ve learned that the biggest barrier to…
-
The use case: Help Me Learn My New Car As much as folks are lamenting about the new cloud version of Oracle support, I have other issues on my mind- like trying to acclimate to my first electric vehicle, even though I already owned a gas-powered Mini Cooper. As I was looking for a good use case to test new vector search with Oracle 26ai, it occurred to me that I could use something better than a key word search when using the manual to my new car. What if I used the manual, which is public information and could…
-
I just posted on how to use a PowerShell script in a flexible manner to perform different tasks with generative AI locally with Ollama, but I realized I hadn’t gone into just how cool and simple it was to run this on my laptop, along with the beauty of the script output. Pulling from the Demo For the demo scenario, the following exists: A Postgres 17.5 database, source and target for a migration. Four migration scripts requiring code review for the following: Syntax Row Level Security issues inside the database (RLS referenced in the prompt) Missing index options Flyway CLI…
-
When working with database migrations, automation is the key to speed and safety. Redgate Flyway already helps us structure and deploy migrations consistently, but what if we could add AI-powered checks directly into our existing pipelines and do so in a safe manner as well? I’ve been promoting this as part of my open-source and Postgres event sessions for the last few weeks and I’d like to discuss it further. Recently Ollama offered the option for a Windows 11 installation. No GPU or tokens required, (although having GPUs won’t hurt) I did timed tests and found it to be a…
-
Over the last year, I’ve had the privilege of presenting keynotes and technical sessions to both the Oracle and SQL Server communities on a subject that’s no longer optional—data protection in the age of AI. Whether I’m speaking at regional events or large conferences, the topic resonates because the risk is no longer theoretical. AI is here, it’s evolving rapidly, and the data it consumes and leaks, can and will define the fate of your organization. Shadow AI is Unseen, Unapproved, and Dangerous “Shadow IT” has been a longstanding challenge, but Shadow AI is its much more dangerous sibling. Employees,…
-
I was caught off guard last week when the “Congratulations on your work anniversary!” messages started rolling in on LinkedIn. It had slipped my mind that it had already been a full year since I began contracting with Redgate back in May 2024. And, true to form, LinkedIn, always eager to simplify the complexities of tech careers and notified my entire network that I’d officially hit the one-year mark, although I hadn’t started full-time till the beginning of October. It can almost feel like an identity crisis as you perform so many roles for different organizations – thrilling and satisfying…
-
Few things frustrate travelers more than lost baggage, and United Airlines certainly tested my patience last week. There were plenty of chances for them to shine in customer service, but their online platform and mobile app ended up being prime examples of what not to do—for both customers and their own service representatives. Background I was flying back to Portland from Austin on Friday, during record cold temperatures across the Southwest. Overhead storage in the cabin was packed with travelers’ winter gear—despite requests to wait until all passengers had boarded—which left me, one of the first in group #3, without…
-
When building products that interact with multiple database platforms, the complexity can be both a challenge and an opportunity. For Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), observing design decisions made without sufficient knowledge of underlying database architecture can be particularly frustrating. These moments highlight the critical need for architectural foresight and platform-specific expertise to avoid pitfalls that compromise scalability, performance, and maintainability. I’ve been managing multiple platforms for a couple decades and in recent years, building products that support the most popular enterprise and open-source databases today. I’m keenly aware of lacking documentation, either due to limited resources or hopes of directing…
-
I’m doing a mid-year review and want to get better about blogging again. I did an initial AlloyDB Omni post this last week and it reminds me about the session I’ll be doing at PASS Community Summit with Steve Karam with PostgreSQL with PGVector! I know, you’re all really confused now- The SQL Server folks are thinking, “I thought she was Oracle??” The Oracle people are thinking I’m just not loyal because I keep working with other database platforms…:) One of the great things about this event is that it’s welcoming to so many technologies and database platforms. I’ve been…
-
I’ve been intensely preparing the LinkedIn Learning Oracle 23c courses, set to film later this month. Despite my responsibilities as Director of Data and AI at Silk, I’m finalizing my Women in Tech presentation for SQL Saturday Jacksonville. The theme is Star Wars, so I used ChatGPT to generate a Princess Leia-inspired image and here’s what was returned: I grimaced, as my red flags went up. Why does she have wisps of hair across her face that’s out of place, yet her white dress is spotless? Does the open V at the chest serve as a target? Does the plate…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
Considering my title on LinkedIn says I’m the RDBMS Dinosaur Farmer, you might be surprised to see a blog post on artificial intelligence (AI) coming from me, but I’ve been interested in the field for some time. There was also a time where I was spending considerable hours on IOT and new technology, only having dug deep into Oracle when it was clear that this was what we needed from me after I joined Microsoft just short of five years ago. I was hired in Analytics and AI, but it became apparent quite quickly it wasn’t going to be my…