There are many sites out there, written by SQL Jedi Masters. Those sites are very helpful but I wanted to create a site from the perspective of what its like as a working production DBA. Not that the Jedi Masters aren't production DBAs but I wanted to show some of the challenges and then the solutions of day-to-day DBA work.
I was working with a Senior C# Developer on a migration of his SQL 2005 DBs to SQL 2012 and we were talking about efficiency and how to work smarter. He shared this link with me from Scott Hanselman regarding productivity (click here to see link). Hanselman talks about conserving your key strokes. "Keep your emails to 3 or 4 sentences, anything longer should be a blog or a wiki..". So this is my effort of conserving keystrokes and hopefully give back in some small way to the DBA community.
A little about me:
I don't have a computer science degree and I am not fresh out of college. Working in data is a second career for me. I was a musician and music teacher for 12 years, 4 of those in southern California where I fell in love with Longboarding, prior to getting into working with SQL Server. In 2010, I was telling a friend of mine, who is a MicroStrategy developer, how I was burned out and wanted to change careers. He told me, "learn SQL and you will always have a job." I had no idea what SQL was. I bought some books and studied for about 9 months and took the SQL Server 2008 Development test. I passed and that helped propel me into a job as a SQL Server DBA in Dallas, TX. I never in a million years thought I would be doing this. It is actually quite rewarding. I love the process of trying to solve a problem.
So why the Surfing DBA when I live in land locked Dallas, TX. I have my Harbour 10.0 Banana hanging up in my garage. When living in SoCal, just about every weekend I was either surfing at Bolsa Chica Tower 22 or San O' or was snowboarding at Snow Summit. When my wife and I had kids, we moved to Dallas to be closer to family. I have never lost my love for the water and miss the ocean terribly. I have recently found DFW Surf Club and will dusting off the old board soon to try some wake surfing and a stand up paddleboard.
Hang Ten my fellow DBAs!!
Michael D'Spain
www.linkedin.com/in/michael-d-86751b121/
10/14/2015
Working for VMWare now. Learning a ton of new stuff including Postgres, Linux, Bash Scripting, vSphere, vCloud Director. Excited for the new opportunity. Adding some new pages regarding stuff I am learning.
04/15/2017
Well my Business unit was sold off. Instead of VMWare we will now be OVH. It's a massive hosting provider so we shall see what the future holds.
10/25/17
So we have been OVH since May 8th. It has been a rough ride. The OVH platform is all open source technology. Not a lot of need for a SQL Server and Powershell guy. Still trying to be positive.
05/07/18
Well things are looking better. We are pitching to the C-Level a need to move away from Open Source DB tech to SQL Server. Keeping my fingers crossed.
07/13/18
We pitched the move to SQL Server instead of all open source. It didn't get shot down so that's a least a step in the right direction. More meetings to come.
11/5/18
A lot has happened since my last post. OVH US laid off 30% of the production support team on 08/06/2018 and I was one of those folks. It was such a bummer. We had such a great team at OVH US. Genuinely loved working those folks. I landed a gig at OpenText about a month later as a Senior DBA but much more dev responsibilities which is fun and challenging. Stay tuned!!
02/22/19
Learning a lot at OpenText. Typical DBA responsibilities as well as Dev responsibilities which is something that has never been a role of mine outside my own powershell and tsql dev stuff for DBA tasks.
09/19/19
I took a position at Lanvera. Doing a lot of Powershell and helping shape future for the database footprint. Working with some good people.
1/20/20
Started new position at RealPage working on a payments app. A friend of mine is a VP and asked me to come over.
1/20/21
Left a very stressful position to come to BlackBaud and working for my first manager when I got into IT. So far really good work life balance and a smart team.
2/17/22
Having over 400 Sysadmins in the DB platform. Are you kidding me?
4/8/22
I am finishing up my first week at Solarwinds. Working on the SQL Sentry team. Found out that most of the improvements I made at my time at BlackBaud have been rolled back. Seems like folks at BlackBaud like unsecure DB instances. Absolutely crazy. Moving on to a new chapter. Excited for the future.
7/26/22
Working at SolarWinds is really fun. I am getting plugged in and adding value. Getting to speak at a SQL Saturday in Baton Rouge. This should be interesting.
9/21/22
I am working with DBAs and helping them solve problems in their environments using SQL Sentry tools as well as other community tools. It's been a lot of fun. This is the first time in a long time, I don't have my eye on the horizon for the next gig.
I was working with a Senior C# Developer on a migration of his SQL 2005 DBs to SQL 2012 and we were talking about efficiency and how to work smarter. He shared this link with me from Scott Hanselman regarding productivity (click here to see link). Hanselman talks about conserving your key strokes. "Keep your emails to 3 or 4 sentences, anything longer should be a blog or a wiki..". So this is my effort of conserving keystrokes and hopefully give back in some small way to the DBA community.
A little about me:
I don't have a computer science degree and I am not fresh out of college. Working in data is a second career for me. I was a musician and music teacher for 12 years, 4 of those in southern California where I fell in love with Longboarding, prior to getting into working with SQL Server. In 2010, I was telling a friend of mine, who is a MicroStrategy developer, how I was burned out and wanted to change careers. He told me, "learn SQL and you will always have a job." I had no idea what SQL was. I bought some books and studied for about 9 months and took the SQL Server 2008 Development test. I passed and that helped propel me into a job as a SQL Server DBA in Dallas, TX. I never in a million years thought I would be doing this. It is actually quite rewarding. I love the process of trying to solve a problem.
So why the Surfing DBA when I live in land locked Dallas, TX. I have my Harbour 10.0 Banana hanging up in my garage. When living in SoCal, just about every weekend I was either surfing at Bolsa Chica Tower 22 or San O' or was snowboarding at Snow Summit. When my wife and I had kids, we moved to Dallas to be closer to family. I have never lost my love for the water and miss the ocean terribly. I have recently found DFW Surf Club and will dusting off the old board soon to try some wake surfing and a stand up paddleboard.
Hang Ten my fellow DBAs!!
Michael D'Spain
www.linkedin.com/in/michael-d-86751b121/
10/14/2015
Working for VMWare now. Learning a ton of new stuff including Postgres, Linux, Bash Scripting, vSphere, vCloud Director. Excited for the new opportunity. Adding some new pages regarding stuff I am learning.
04/15/2017
Well my Business unit was sold off. Instead of VMWare we will now be OVH. It's a massive hosting provider so we shall see what the future holds.
10/25/17
So we have been OVH since May 8th. It has been a rough ride. The OVH platform is all open source technology. Not a lot of need for a SQL Server and Powershell guy. Still trying to be positive.
05/07/18
Well things are looking better. We are pitching to the C-Level a need to move away from Open Source DB tech to SQL Server. Keeping my fingers crossed.
07/13/18
We pitched the move to SQL Server instead of all open source. It didn't get shot down so that's a least a step in the right direction. More meetings to come.
11/5/18
A lot has happened since my last post. OVH US laid off 30% of the production support team on 08/06/2018 and I was one of those folks. It was such a bummer. We had such a great team at OVH US. Genuinely loved working those folks. I landed a gig at OpenText about a month later as a Senior DBA but much more dev responsibilities which is fun and challenging. Stay tuned!!
02/22/19
Learning a lot at OpenText. Typical DBA responsibilities as well as Dev responsibilities which is something that has never been a role of mine outside my own powershell and tsql dev stuff for DBA tasks.
09/19/19
I took a position at Lanvera. Doing a lot of Powershell and helping shape future for the database footprint. Working with some good people.
1/20/20
Started new position at RealPage working on a payments app. A friend of mine is a VP and asked me to come over.
1/20/21
Left a very stressful position to come to BlackBaud and working for my first manager when I got into IT. So far really good work life balance and a smart team.
2/17/22
Having over 400 Sysadmins in the DB platform. Are you kidding me?
4/8/22
I am finishing up my first week at Solarwinds. Working on the SQL Sentry team. Found out that most of the improvements I made at my time at BlackBaud have been rolled back. Seems like folks at BlackBaud like unsecure DB instances. Absolutely crazy. Moving on to a new chapter. Excited for the future.
7/26/22
Working at SolarWinds is really fun. I am getting plugged in and adding value. Getting to speak at a SQL Saturday in Baton Rouge. This should be interesting.
9/21/22
I am working with DBAs and helping them solve problems in their environments using SQL Sentry tools as well as other community tools. It's been a lot of fun. This is the first time in a long time, I don't have my eye on the horizon for the next gig.