SQL Server 2016 introduced a new security feature called Dynamic Data Masking. With the General Data Protection Regulations, (GDPR) breathing heavy down most IT in America’s neck, its good timing. “Data Masking” is a term that has a strict definition, but different results when we actually discuss the technology behind it. The main goal is to obfuscate critical data in a non-reversible process and I deem it separate from encryption technology. With SQL Server’s Dynamic Data Masking, the original data is still present in the database, with a masking rule applied to hide the data, allowing anyone with the unmask privilege…
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As I begin my education in SQL Server 2017, as well as Azure SQL Database, my attention was caught by the optimizer improvements and especially automatic tuning. Often referred to with features starting with the naming convention of “dynamic” in Oracle, many automatic features either thrill or frustrate DBAs, no matter what the platform. The frustration enters with the features introduction and often decreases as the feature matures and becomes more stable. With the introduction of the Automatic Tuning from Microsoft, there’s a sense of concern, but also some very promising ways Microsoft is introducing these features. With Automatic Tuning,…
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So this week I’m back on the other coast, Raleigh, NC at ECO17 after last week in Seattle. I’ve switched from SQL Server to Oracle and we won’t discuss how many times I had to correct myself as I said, “transaction log” instead of “archive log” and pointed west instead of east for the ocean…My expression at times was similar to Obi Wan’s- For the next month, I’ll be sticking to the Oracle side, as this is going to be a crazy month for travel. My two sessions at ECO this week were well attended and I really enjoyed talking…
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This week I had the opportunity to present at Microsoft’s Pass Summit, which was one of two events I had on my list for this year, (the other was Oracle Open World.) Although I’m still learning about all the events on the Microsoft side, unlike Oracle, where there’s one, massive event in San Francisco each fall, Microsoft has split their annual events into three to focus on each audience. In less than two months, there was MS Ignite in Florida, focused on tomorrow’s technology, IT Dev Connections, geared towards development and then this week, Pass Summit, for the Data Platform…
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Thursday started out calm, self-assured that I knew where I needed to be all day and was prepared. I tweeted happily that I had found a lovely spot to work during the keynote, (day job!) Yeah, this: At the keynote, there was a table with my name on it where I was supposed to be. Thank you so much to Brent Ozar for letting me know so I could apologize for the miscommunication with the organizers of the blogger table, (which is not the same thing as the blogger meetup- oops!!) The rest of the day was crazy busy, but…
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I’ve plenty of rest after arriving in Seattle yesterday to get my registration for Pass Summit, attended the Women in Technology Happy Hour and then received my Idera ACE! Now Wednesday morning, I spent it reworking my slides for the third time and preparing while the main keynote was going on, (my session was right after and was streamed.) After all that work, I then came to realize after adjusting my resolution, we loaded the previous deck and I had to think fast, skipping some older slides during my presentation. Lucky for me, I had an awesome audience and the…
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I travel and a seriously good amount. I will present at about 35-40 events, attend company functions/meetings and this year with a considerable amount of those outside of the Denver area, this means I’ll be on a plane around 5-6 trips per month. Women commonly pack more, but I receive a few comments per my average three day trip on how I’m able to travel with a 16 inch carry-on. I’m picking up new tricks every day, but the one thing I’ve come to learn, once you find a great travel trick, you have a tendency to look no further…
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So we’ve covered a few basics of a Linux host in Part I– The File System Users, groups Basic Commands with basic arguments And file and directory permissions Hopefully, what I share next will build on the first post and enhance your knowledge as you move forward with Linux. Reading the contents of a directory, gathering information on files and locating files are some of the most common tasks a DBA will perform as they work on a server. Many of the following commands require you to “pipe” a second command onto the first. This is done by joining the…
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For the Oracle DBA, Linux is life. When I was at Oracle, Linux projects were the easy part of my job, unlike the ones on Windows, AIX, HP-UX and at times, even Solaris. You knew the Linux ones received the most love from development, had the most time towards patching and received attention if there was a bug. History Linux was introduced in 1991, thanks to Linus Tovalds and has been in active development, with introduction of different “flavors” of the OS over the years. As many folks know, Linux was carved out of the GNU open license project, which…
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As I continue to dig into the legacy we’re impacted by in technology, I had the opportunity to read Disrupt or Die, the new book from Delphix and Avamar founder, Jedidiah Yueh. I was first concerned that the content wouldn’t be that interesting to someone from the deep technical like myself… To be honest, I ended up quite captivated by the history lessons surrounding some of our most successful technology companies, like Facebook, Google, Salesforce and others. The book discusses, in Jed’s own words, something that I’ve always referred to as “the power in the simple act of doing” and…
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Just in case you wondered, if you do a search for #ThanksODC and leave the “C” off, you get a lot of stuff on the boy band, One Direction…. You can thank me later for that warning…. The sheer amount of thank you posts for Oracle Development Community Appreciation Day, (#ThanksODC) and the historical hashtag for reference, #ThanksOTN are impressive, but I waited a day on mine so I could continue the support for the Oracle Women in Technology, (and @ORAWit). Here are the ThankODC blog posts from the great women of the Oracle Community! I’m going to start with…
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The first edition of the free eBook is available for download at Delphix! It took us a bit to get the final updates to the eBook version completed and I want to thank everyone at Delphix who helped get the content updated with the latest additions, including the bossman, Eric Schrock and for helping me keep it all organized and finalized, shoutouts to Rita Rosenberg. If you’re interested in downloading a PDF copy, simply go to this link and get a version for yourself and find out what you need to know as a DBA about where we fit into…
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So now that I’m finished just taking it easy, playing hooky from Oracle Open World and Oak Table World…uh, yeah…. I get to recover from emergency surgery for another week and while I’ve been busy writing slide content, building out new abstracts for the new year, along with content for a couple books, I’m finishing chapters on. My ebook is about to come out for DevOps for the DBA: The Next Frontier, (I’ll be giving a few hard copies away at events in the next couple of months, but you can get a free copy at Delphix.com soon!) This is…
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Somehow I’ve made it a pastime of pointing out how many times women are passed up for recognition while men are promoted around them. Its not that the men were identified as better or worse than women, but just about how heavily we scrutinize and limit women while everyone else passes them by. Now I’m going to ask the Oracle folks to not take this personally, but hopefully take it as a call to arms, but I know how we love to shoot the messenger. Hopefully you already know that I will have no qualms about deleting abusive or threatening…
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The network has often been viewed as “no man’s land” for the DBA- Our tools may identify network latency, but rarely does it go into any details, designating the network outside our jurisdiction. As we work through data gravity, i.e. the weight of data, the pull of applications, services, etc. to data sources, we have to inspect what connects it to the data and slows it down. Yes, the network. We can’t begin to investigate the network without spending some time on Shannon’s law, also known as Shannon-Hartley Theorem. The equation relates to the maximum capacity (transmission bit rate) that…
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As we come upon Oracle Open World at the end of the month, I’m busy with a number of events and tasks. I spoke at the Microservices, Containers and DevOps Summit in Denver yesterday and will be traveling to San Diego, California to speak at SQL Saturday #661 this weekend. I love the Microsoft events, but not sure my family loves the loss of my weekend time with them half as much. At the end of the month, Delphix will be publishing my DevOps book based off my series of blog posts and webinars on DevOps and the DBA. It…
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I planned on finishing up and publishing a different post today, but after a number of conversations with DBAs in the community, this topic took precedence. Yesterday the above announcement came out with the Oracle earnings call, along with the following: “In a couple of weeks, we will announce the world’s first fully autonomous database cloud service,” said Oracle Chairman and CTO, Larry Ellison. “Based on machine learning, the latest version of Oracle is a totally automated “self-driving” system that does not require human beings to manage or tune the database. Using AI to eliminate most sources of human error…
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It was a really busy summer and ended with me returning after a week of vacation in Singapore. What should I do after a 17hr flight and jet lag? Two webinars and a SQL Saturday event! What better way to get over jet lag and get my game back on and just jump back in! I started out by having a webinar this morning on “DBA to DevOps to DataOps- the Revolution.” I had a feeling with the jet lag, I’d be done faster than I’d hoped, but with the amount of questions from the over 400 attendees, it was…