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August 28, 2012

Some Anniversaries Are Just Not Happy Days

Some moments in time are singed into your memory banks forever. I woke up the morning of August 29, 2011 and I saw an e-mail with the title “Mike Kenwood” and all it said in the body was “holy crap”. This was from a close college friend of mine who still lives in the Boston area and also knew Mike (but not as well as me, but knew how close I was with him). I was groggy, so the gravity didn’t quite hit me of the “holy crap” part. Anyone who knows me well knows that I am not a morning person – let alone on a Monday – no matter what time zone I’m in, but this day I did happen to be up before 9AM. I responded to him shortly after getting the mail and asked what happened and well, I’ve talked about the rest of the story – mostly here and here. If you want the condensed version and don’t want to read the links, my friend Mike Kenwood passed away a year ago today – August 28, 2011. A short time after that e-mail, I called his wife but also got a call from his wife’s sister shortly after that to tell me. She didn’t know that I knew already and apologized for not calling sooner, but clearly between the hurricane and the suddenness of it all (and as I found out later, how they got to NJ in the middle of a hurricane), they didn’t call me the night before when it happened. It’s not like they weren’t all trying to deal with a lot of stuff or anything …

A lot has happened in a year. I arguably had the worst fall ever (anyone surprised?), ran to Japan to clear my head in December, and then things have largely been on the upswing ever since which I am supremely thankful for. I’ve had a ton of wonderful opportunities present themselves, not the least of which is going to Australia in November to deliver two training classes. But don’t think for one minute that Mike doesn’t creep into my thoughts frequently or sometimes I wish that good or bad times, there are times I still want to reach out and pick up the phone (yes, use the phone as a phone … remember that?) to talk to him or send him an e-mail to share a laugh or get his opinion. Those are the toughest moments, but it gets easier as time goes on. Notice I didn’t say better, just easier.

Mike’s also had a helluva year. He was always a mensch, and he was posthumously recognized for his actions. (As an aside, why is it we don’t often recognize what people do when they’re alive? Just saying …). Here’s a list (and I’m sure I’ve missed some stuff):

He was honored at the National EMS Memorial Service
He received the Jefferson Award
A bench in his name in Princeton which will be dedicated on the anniversary of his death
A tribute concert this September (Sunday the 23rd at Princeton School Performing Arts Center) (which I strongly suggest you go to if you’re in the area; it’s being put on by Broadway Sings – the proceeds go to good causes)

Back in July, I went down to New Jersey for the unveiling of the headstone (here’s the Orthodox take on it if you’re curious what Jews do). It was a small ceremony – mainly family with a few non-family folks. Was it sad? Absolutely. Only a year before we were shoveling dirt on his coffin, and here we were placing small stones on his headstone with the grass neatly cut and cared for. The person officiating was the cantor from Beth and Michael’s synagogue. He did a wonderful job, and the thing is – as sad as it was, it became a celebration of Mike’s life. Moments were shared, some laughs (through the tears, of course) were had by all. It was very fitting.

Mike and I really had a lot of laughs; in keeping with the spirit of celebrating, not mourning, I recently looked at his Facebook page, and this was one of his last posts: “Just caught my 5th squirrel in the rabbit trap. It would be so bad if the rabbit wasn’t sitting next to it laughing.” Still makes me smile, because I can hear him saying that, and is a very typical quip from Mike. I miss that.

We also shared a love for Batman (and comic book stuff in general, but mainly Batman), so naturally he came to mind with the opening of The Dark Knight Rises. I would have loved to hear his take on it. I’m sure, like me, he would have seen it in IMAX (real, not fake). He and I did stuff like that together. I remember seeing one of the Spider Man flicks with him (Spider Man 2) as well as the Lion King (in IMAX at the Navy Pier) while he lived in Chicago. I think he also would have loved the Avengers movie.

Mike was about living and embracing life as I’ve talked about. He may have lived a little vicariously through me since I traveled all over the world (we once joked a little about me being a human Where’s Waldo?), but there was never any jealousy and he had as rich a life as anyone I know. He was happy, and good at so many things. I don’t think he was ever happier or more proud once he became a father. He loved every minute of being a Dad. They had just recently got done remodeling their kitchen (Mike liked to cook). He lived more in just under 40 years than some people do in a lifetime. What more could you ask for? (And yes, it’s still hard using past tense in relation to talking about him.)

I’m thankful for all the time I got to spend with him over the years, even if as we got older – as these things happen – you don’t get to see people as often as you used to (or liked) and had separate lives. I’m especially grateful Mike made the time to come down to see a Phillies game with me (and my Dad) at Citizens Bank Park in 2010. It was one of the last times he and I got to hang out. Again, some memories are written with indelible ink.

Recently I was watching the Live From Daryl’s House episode (#30), which was a tribute to T-Bone Wolk who had passed away shortly before that episode was recorded. I’ve always loved T-Bone because he was a fantastic bass player. The guys who honor him in this episode were his friends and bandmates. I love how they went to his family’s house, reminisce, and at the end, they have little individual tributes. What Daryl said at the end is really true: life won’t ever be the same, but it does go on somehow. At 1:38 in the last segment, Daryl says, “He’s an irreplaceable person.” So was Mike.

August 23, 2012

When Is It Time To Stop Using a Deprecated Feature?

Twitter conversations can sometimes lead to interesting things. Jonathan Kehayias (Blog | Twitter) and I were going back and forth about something, and in some cases, how we differ on how we teach (some of that was based on teaching or not teaching a deprecated feature). It was a very healthy discussion if you ask me. I really respect Jon and he’s one of the smartest folks on the planet when it comes to SQL Server in nearly every respect. I don’t say that lightly. Paul, Kim, and the rest of the crew over at SQLskills are very lucky to have him on their team.

Be it Windows, SQL, SharePoint, whatever – all of these products at some point release a new version and as part of the lifecycle of that product, some features are deprecated. A good example is that database mirroring has been deprecated as of SQL Server 2012. It’s still in the product, but its development is over and it will disappear from the product in a few versions. Another easy example for me to mention (and what sparked the debate between Jon and I) was the use of the aforementioned cluster.exe in Windows, which was deprecated in Windows Server 2008 R2 and is technically gone in Windows Server 2012 (disclaimer: you can add it back by enabling a certain feature, but it hasn’t seen any improvement or development since Windows Server 2008; more on cluster.exe in a bit). In the immortal words of Hall and Oates, “She’s Gone” (following the Daryl Hall theme from my last post; I was challenged to use “Rich Girl”, but this was more of a natural fit – sorry Rick!).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnVXIUyshng

That begs the question: when do you stop actively using/teaching/recommending/etc. a certain feature you either know has been deprecated or will be going away (but may not be public knowledge although you have good NDA information which you really can’t share)? The answer, not surprisingly, is “it depends”.

Let’s take the case of my good friend cluster.exe who I’ve lived with for the better part of 10+ years. At this point, I’m not seeing any new deployments of SQL Server 2008 (RTM branch or R2) on the original Windows Server 2008 (no R2); it’s all basically Windows Server 2008 R2 with SP1. W2K8 R2 introduced the first round of PowerShell cmdlets for Windows Server failover clustering (WSFC). When I wrote my SQL Server 2008 book, W2K8 R2 was just being wrapped up so I documented both. As time has marched on since 2008/9, not only have I personally used cluster.exe less, when I teach my classes or do presentations, I don’t even bother showing it anymore. Why? In 2012, to me it makes no sense to show something that is deprecated and outdated, and is gone in Windows Server 2012. If you’re using Windows Server 2008 R2, you really should be using PowerShell to administer your clusters (one man’s opinion, of course; feel free to disagree). However, there are still exceptions to that rule. For one specific thing in Windows Server 2008 R2, there is no PowerShell equivalent (it’s basically related to availability groups in SQL Server 2012). This is fixed in Windows Server 2012. Similarly, some things that have a PowerShell cmdlet (Test-Cluster), have no cluster.exe equivalent. The pros outweigh the cons for me of not showing or teaching cluster.exe these days. Would I if someone asked? Sure. I’m not so stuck on not showing it; I just think it’s better to learn the stuff you can use now AND in the future when you want to go to Windows Server 2012.

The story is not so cut and dry with a feature like database mirroring. Unlike Windows which really makes it clear cut you need to move on – and quickly, SQL Server keeps a feature around and intact for at least two versions before it goes away (another really good example was DB-Lib). That could possibly translate into almost 6 – 10 years of shelf life, giving you a false sense of security. Sometimes there’s a clear cut feature that replaces it. In the case of database mirroring, a lot of people use it now. That’s one factor, so it makes the announcement that much harder. But the real crux of the problem as I see it is a case of the haves and have-nots. If you are using Standard Edition of SQL Server, Microsoft is recommending log shipping as your replacement. For Enterprise (now Datacenter) Edition, it’s availability groups. AGs are a great evolution of what was started with DBM, but with the new dependence on WSFC for deploying AGs, it may be a non-starter for some. But people who want to upgrade to SQL Server 2012 or whatever vNext (or vNextNext) may be, they need to start planning a roadmap otherwise it makes it that eventual upgrade harder because your back will be up against the proverbial wall. There’s no easy answer here, but it’s a conversation I’m having with a lot of my customers.

When it comes to having NDA information on something to be announced in the future, I can never spill the beans. Sorry. If I do, that puts me at risk with whoever I have the NDA in place with (and that comes with all kinds of legal problems for me if I do). I love my customers, but it’s not worth putting me out of business by letting something slip. That said, I can still steer customers in the right direction without them even getting a hint that there may be an underlying and different reason I am doing so.

I’ll leave you with this one final thought: as much as deprecated features are important to consider in your planning efforts, don’t let it become an obsession, either. DBM is a great example – it’s not going away tomorrow. If you’re using it now, that’s OK. A deprecation announcement didn’t mean to stop using it this very minute; just don’t get complacent about making a decision, either. A few years goes by in the blink of an eye when it comes to IT (just look at the people still running SQL Server 2000 for whatever valid reason and are stuck supporting it). Don’t be that guy or gal keeping the lights on for the few instances requiring DBM for the next 15 years. Be smart, make the right choices, and stay on a supportability path.

August 22, 2012

Pick Any Two

It’s been said that you can do things right, cheap, or fast. Pick two.

I’ve heard people substitute other words into that first sentence (such as available, reliable, and fast), but you get the point: you generally won’t get it all when it comes to deploying a solution or working on a project … that is, unless you’re willing to pony up some serious money. Even then, it still may not be possible due to some other limitation. Truth be told, of that initial list, I might argue you only get one of three (right and fast are not always friendly bedmates), and even that may be a question mark. Why? This all underscores an important point in what we do in IT as well as in life: often times, it’s about tradeoffs. The right solution or decision is often the most difficult one to make or implement. No one likes to work anymore, right? 🙂

Whenever I see offerings from various companies offering you solutions that promise you the world (unlimited scalability, five nines of uptime, we manage it for you – nothing for you to worry about, etc.), I just chuckle. Either they did the right work on the backend to make that happen (not likely) or they’re selling you a bill of goods (maybe). The truth probably lies somewhere in between.

It takes effort, knowledge, skill, budget, and often, a bit of luck for the stars to align. How many times have you joined a new company with the illusion you’ll change the world or started a project completely idealistic, only to find things like a small budget spoils the plans and you’ve got to figure out how to “make it work”? This is also why in many cases, besides them not possibly applying to your scenario, best practices are often hard to implement. They’re not always real world. “But I must have RAID 10!!!!” Keep on living the dream when your SAN guy or gal gives you whatever they have and you have no choice in the matter.

It’s nice to be idealistic. Maybe you can join Daryl Hall in Dreamtime (and as evidenced in this clip, he still looks/sounds pretty damn good in 2012 at 65!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Re805lUUfvU

Here’s my reality: I live in the real world with customers that have resource, time, budget, and skill set issues (among many other constraints; every customer is different) which need to be taken into account when I deliver something. It’s not about being right (in some way it is, but standing on ceremony gets you nowhere) or saying “I told you so”. At the end of the day, you have to be realistic, and so does your management as well as the bean counters. You’re not getting 24x7x365 and great performance on things like limited budget, staff, and severe time limitations (a subject I addressed a little here). Something has to give. Sometimes it is a technical reason that something isn’t possible. Yes, we’ve come very far in the past 10 – 20 years, but everything isn’t possible. And Microsoft isn’t changing SQL Server or Windows just for you to make you work a certain way, either. Even if you offered to fund that development, I doubt it’d happen.

The worst offenders here I find are managers or C-levels. It’s not all of them, but many. They may have once been technical, but now they may be removed from the day-to-day of what it takes to get something done. I mean, don’t we worker-bee types all have magic fairy dust to create a /faster or /moreuptime switch? If I did, do you think I’d still be working? I’d be selling and/or licensing the hell out of it and retired.

What you need to do, and I do it all the time, is get everyone on the same page with the right information so you can move forward. Like I said, some things will have to give. That may mean you need more budget, time, etc., or hard cuts will have to be made to make other things happen. That’s life. When we can have the right conversation without anyone digging their heels in, the real work can begin.

August 16, 2012

Drawing Inspiration and Data Aplenty

Hello everyone! I just came off a bit of a vacation where I went to the Disney D23 Destination D 75 Years of Animated Features event out in California. Of course I didn’t give myself much of a transition – I am finishing up a 3-day private training course today.

Anyway, I’ve talked about it before in a previous blog post, but growing up I wanted to be an animator for Disney. For me, Disney has always been in my life as far back as I can remember; I mean, I can vividly remember coming home in the afternoons and watching the old Mickey Mouse Club reruns on, if memory serves me correctly, Channel 48 in Philadelphia. Disney is liked for many reasons by different people, but for me it’s always been about the animation. So the opportunity to go to an event focused on the animation and while not talked about in that link above, there was a 3rd day that was limited to a certain number of people which allowed you to tour the Walt Disney Studio (but different than the normal D23 tour they do periodically) and see things like the Animation Research Library – no brainer. Going there has always been one of my holy grails. (Before you start rolling your eyes, I promise there will be IT/SQL related content in this post. No, really.)

That third day was simply amazing and worth every penny I paid. In the AM we got to tour the Roy E. Disney Animation building where the animators put together a whole program for us showing the animation process based on the upcoming Wreck It Ralph movie. They took us through the different processes, and not surprisingly, the one that interested me the most was recording the voices and such. Don’t get me wrong, using the real Disney animation tools in a lab to mess with Wreck It Ralph was fun, but I could have sat in that recording studio all day and absorbed info about the process and asked questions since I’m a music/audio guy.

In the afternoon, we got to do different things, one of which was visiting the aforementioned Animation Research Library – arguably the place if you care at all about Disney animation. It’s locked down tighter than Fort Knox. More than a holy grail, it’s proverbially sacred ground and something I thought I’d never see. 65 million pieces of artwork live there. They took a small selection out for us and we got to look inside a few of the vaults. Seeing things like actual pencil drawings from “Steamboat Willie” (1928), the original maquettes used by animators for various movies, the wooden Pinocchio marionette from 1940 seen here (lower right picture), and original Mary Blair artwork (among many other things) was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Most Disney people can’t even get in, let alone see some of what we saw. I am still thinking about it days later.

Another standout thing was that we got various presentations, one of which was on the preservation and restoration of the Disney vault of films (animated and live action) and shorts. This was something right up my alley since I’m also a video guy (I still have and use my laserdisc player). It was clear I was the techie guy asking the questions and people were looking at me like I had two heads. It was definitely a magical day all around.

As much as I was on vacation and loving this experience, my IT/SQL mind started to creep in and come up to the foreground every now and then. When we were in the studio, some folks go to do some ADR work to see what that process was (and it was fun to observe), but I was a bit more interested in the gear and process. What was interesting to me is that besides the takes they recorded in one rig, they had a continuous session running in parallel on a different one to capture literally everything. One reason for that is simple: if something is missed, it is captured elsewhere (think backups and HA/DR – gotta love redundancy).

That begs the question: how much data is that? Well, potentially a lot for each project over its lifetime. So of course I asked the question – at what resolution do they record at? For you non-audio geeks, to put anything I’m going to say in perspective, a CD’s resolution has a sampling rate of 44.1 kHz at a depth of 16-bit (an 80 minute CD at 44/16 is roughly 700MB of data). In the audio world, higher sampling rates (48, 88.2, 96, 192, or 384 being the other common options) and more depth (either 24- or 32-bit) is generally a better thing. Not surprisingly, that all chews up a lot of space the more resolution and the higher the bit depth you go. They record at 48/24, and everything is stored on a server with a lot of space. Considering how much audio they must have for each project, that’s a lot to deal with (even at 48/24) not only in terms of needing it near term for the active movie project, but then to back it up and ultimately archive it for other uses down the road. This is not unlike a DBA needing to manage a total of giga-, tera-, or petabytes of information both in databases as well as the various copies (including backups). This is just the audio data – can you imagine all of the animation, too? Wow. Oh, and every bit of that audio needs to be meticulously cataloged, too. Much like you need to keep inventory of all of your servers, instances, and databases.

During the video restoration presentation, we (royal we here) got to talking shop a bit (probably to the dismay of the non-audio and video folks who were in my group) and I asked why they only scan in at 4K and not 8K, as well as discussed audio sample rates. The reason was similar: it’s a data problem and for some old film types, you’re theoretically not going to really get better with higher scans (MuppetVision 3D in Disneyland was scanned in at 6K if you care about such things, but that decision had a lot to do with the original format; this forum discusses this topic more if you want to see some opinions and other links). This puts a whole new spin on Big Data, eh? It may not be schemas, but it sure is a ton of information that is unwieldy to deal with.

What was also interesting about that presentation was the talk about the film stock and not only how flammable it could be (depending on its type), but no matter what they do, at some point, the originals will be completely unusable (much like how I related backups to audio which I blogged about awhile back). Digital, film, analog tape – stored properly it will have a long shelf life, but it may not … it all depends since there are so many factors that contribute to that. If you have important data that needs to live for a long time, preserve it properly and have adequate redundancy, too. Archiving is no joke. A company like Disney is built on its history, and they need to preserve it.

Shifting gears a bit, the Animation Research Library as I said houses 65,000,000 pieces of art. I didn’t ask, but I could tell it was all cataloged and scanned in (I thought I heard someone say 150 dpi which was good enough years ago; I believe they’re working on scanning in at either 600 or 1200dpi now that tech has moved on and storage has gotten cheaper). Anyway, point is, we’ve got another data thing going on here. This is data not only used by animators today that needs to be accessible (hello HA!), but quickly and organized. Side note: cool perk of working there is you can apparently choose pieces from the archive to put up in your office. Drool. This is Art on Demand on steroids! Where do I sign up at HR for framed pencil drawings of “The Band Concert“?

Would I still love to be an animator? Maybe, but some of what goes on at Disney isn’t too far off from what I do today. I help customers ensure their data is available when they need it, be it near line or offline. Your data is your IP … and legacy. So maybe I really did choose the right career path after all – just getting a glimpse of how Disney deals with things like archiving and redundancy gives me inspiration in what I do right now, and is more than just a doodle on a page or a ride in an amusement park.

July 31, 2012

So What’s on the Dance Card?

It looks like the next few months are going to be busier than ever. I feel like I should be asking “Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?”, but substituting either my name or Ben’s in. Besides our normal docket of customer work, below is a list of where you can find us over the next few months. We may add a few things to the plate, but the list is everything we know of right now. Keep your eye towards our Upcoming Events page for the latest info!

SQL Saturday 158

Both Ben and I will be speaking this weekend at SQL Saturday 158 in New York City. SQLHA is sponsoring the event as well. Ben’s talk (“Surviving Your Peak Database Load”) is at 1:45PM, and my session (“SQL Server Dos and Don’ts: Keys to DBA Nirvana”) is at 4:15. I’m super excited to be doing a non-HA talk which is rare for me.

SQL Server Foundations 2012

Ben and I will be doing a two day eLearning Seminar for Penton and SQL Server Pro on SQL Server basics on September 11 and 13. It will be six sessions over the two days (three per day). This is similar to the event I did for them last year and is in the process of being updated; we’re just not rehashing the same old stuff. Full information on what we’ll be talking about (including pricing and registration) can be found here.

24 Hours of PASS

Ben and I will be doing a session at 24HOP. PASS hasn’t announced any dates or times, but we’ll be there!

PASS SQLRally Nordic 2012

I’ll be heading back to Europe for the second time this year to speak at PASS SQLRally 2012 Nordic. I’ll be doing a pre-conference seminar (“AlwaysOn: Maximizing High Availability with SQL Server 2012”) and most likely a session at some point during the other two days.

PASS Summit

Ben and I will also be at Summit in November. He and I will be doing a pre-conference session on Tuesday, November 6th entitled “Real-World System Design for the DBA: Private Cloud and SQL as a Service”. Ben will be blogging soon with a longer description of what we’re going to cover since we’ve had a few questions (mainly due to the fact we were limited in the number of characters we could use). I’ll also be co-presenting “The Good, Bad, and Ugly of Deploying AlwaysOn Availability Groups” with Mike Steineke and David Smith during the Summit (time and day not scheduled yet).

Training in Australia

In conjunction with Wardy IT Solutions, I’m going Down Under to deliver two weeks of training after PASS Summit. The class is a 4-day mission critical one complete with labs in both Brisbane (November 19 – 22) and Canberra (November 26 – 29). There’s an Early Bird discount until August 30, 2012. Click here to register for Brisbane and here for Canberra. The full course outline and details can be found here in PDF format. I’m very excited about this opportunity – both weeks should be great. I’m starting to talk with some other folks about other deliveries in 2013 of the course with labs outside of Australia, so stay tuned. If you would like to see it in your area or want to host it, contact us.

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