Recently, I re-entered the Oracle community as a speaker, and I won’t lie, I felt some anxiety. I’d been away from the Oracle keynote stage for a while, focusing on building solutions, working in spaces that welcomed me, and doing what so many long-term women in tech have had to do: protect our energy, guard our sanity, and rebuild when too many small harms have added up. So, when I was asked to keynote not one, but several Oracle events, I was humbled. These weren’t just recycled talks-they were opportunities to create something meaningful. I don’t do canned keynotes. I…
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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…
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Now that I’ve been at Redgate as the newest Advocate, along with my engineering duties, let’s talk about the annual event so many of us attend each year in the Microsoft data community- PASS Data Community Summit. My schedule is shaping up to be a busy one and I want to make sure that folks know where I’ll be through the week. SQL Saturday Oregon/SW Washington My week starts the weekend before, where I will be doing the keynote at SQL Saturday Oregon/SW Washington. The keynote will be on “Why Can’t AI Do the Dishes Already?” and will follow a…
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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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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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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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I don’t talk too much about my Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, (ADHD) brain outside of the occasional squirrel joke and more often view it as a super power, but when it is a challenge, I think it’s important to share what we go through. You can’t solve a problem if you don’t know it is one. ADHD and Autism For those that aren’t aware, I was diagnosed with ADHD/on the spectrum for autism back in 2004-2005. Its not that I wasn’t before this, I just grew up in a very rural area. I fully demonstrated traditional traits for a kid…
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Hello from Atlanta, where I’m preparing for tomorrow’s SQL Saturday and arrived for the great news announcing this year’s PASS Summit 2019 Learning Pathways. These sessions are two or more sessions to provide a more complete learning opportunity for the attendee. I’ll be part of two of these pathways: Technical Leadership: Becoming a Technical Leader with Denise McInerney Linux for SQL Server Professionals: Empowering the SQL Professional with Linux Scripting I’m looking forward both to the first, a leadership talk, as we rarely see a focus on how to forge a path in a technical career without often sacrificing our…
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There are busy times for everyone and if you speak at conferences, the busy times are March,May and November. I am recovering from the early spring rush, and now it’s time to prepare for the late spring one. I’ve been fortunate enough to be accepted to speak at the following regional SQL Saturdays and look forward to speaking and meeting new folks, along with catching up with conference friends: SQL Saturday Raleigh, April 27th Optimizing Power BI, Taming of the Shrew, (Analytics) SQL Saturday Jacksonville, May 5th GDPR, The Buck Stops Here, (data governance) Be a Part of the Solution…
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Click bait worthy title, eh? 🙂 That’s what I thought after I read the article from the Harvard Biz Review with the lead in comment, “Women who have already made it to the top say that the only person who will get you there is yourself.” I found this utterly misleading and the article missing many of the important areas, proving this incorrect. We are highly critical of women and we’re uncomfortable with women’s ambition, (which the article did lightly touch on.) The author didn’t capture how much women require sponsors and mentors or, as the article also touched on,…
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I spent this week speaking at two conferences that may not be familiar to my usual crowd: • Techwell StarEast Testing Conference in Orlando, FL • Interop ITX Data Conference in Las Vegas, NV StarEast Testing Conference Techwell’s event is attended by testers and had over 2000 attendees at the Hyatt Regency Orlando’s Convention Center. This is a huge convention center and I won’t lie- I did try to first register at the Mazda event and then the KPMG event. One of the attendees in my session admitted she was crashing my talk from the KPMG conference and I was pretty…
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I’m starting to move towards doing more videos and hope to improve my video skills, (and maybe add a dance sequence, ya know, like the hip kids…) Check out this post and please, do add comments, ask questions or just tell me what you think? Have an awesome Wednesday and no, don’t comment on my consistent need to make a strange face at the beginning of a video… 🙂