rant Archives

August 25, 2015

August Anniversaries

July and August are big months for me. July is when my MVP Award comes up for renewal (and as I posted here, I was renewed for the sixth time this year, for a total of seven Microsoft Cluster MVP awards). August is important in other ways. It was in August of 2007 that went I took the leap, went independent, and formed Megahirtz, LLC after leaving Avanade – no safety net. So this month starts year eight of being my own boss. When I started, I said to myself, “Well, get through year one and we’ll see about year two.” All these years later, I can’t imagine going back and working in a typical 9-to-5 (is there even such a thing?), go in the office every day type of job. I would if I had to, but I’m not seeing that need. SQLHA is going strong so that is not even an option.

I’ve certainly had my share of ups and downs in the world of independent consulting. I sometimes submit my “So You Want to Be a Consultant?” talk to SQL Saturdays. It has been picked on occasion, and I enjoy delivering it. If you are thinking of going independent, the best piece of advice I can give to anyone wanting to strike out on their own is this: have both a good accountant and a good lawyer. So many people underestimate the business side of consulting. It consumes a lot of time. If you are not prepared to run a business and everything that it entails, don’t leave the hug of corporate life. Why an accountant and lawyer? You need people who understand things like taxes (they’re not the same as your personal stuff), VAT, understanding the legalese of contracts, and so on. What you don’t know will hurt you. Your skills alone will not make you a success. You also need a plan to market your business and your skills, but that to me is much easier than ensuring everything is kosher with the business. Screw that up, there will be no independence.

This Friday, August 28, marks the four year anniversary of the death of my friend, Mike Kenwood. Lasrt year, I wrote a pretty long blog post about it on the third anniversary., so I’m not going to rehash everything there but I encourage you to read it. I get very moody and contemplative around the end of August. It is what it is. I still miss him and think about him quite often, even at times reaching for the phone. I don’t think that feeling will ever go away. Many of us tend to focus on the small things in there here and now and on what I like to call “first world problems”. It is nice (if that is even the right term) to take a step back and assess things and be thankful for what you do have and can do, not what sucks and you cannot do.

I’m not saying I’m always Mr. Warm and Fuzzy every minute of every day, but in the years since Mike has passed away, I have gained a whole new perspective on things. Our time on this planet is short, so enjoy it and try not to sweat the small stuff (says the guy heads down writing a book and under stress to get it done lol). I’m no less competitive and driven today than I was when I started Megahirtz, but I do take time to smell the proverbial roses. You should, too.

As humans we tend to use money as a measuring stick of success. No amount of money would bring Mike back to be a father to his daughter or a husband to his wife. I joke sometimes you can’t take it with you when you go and money does not buy health or happiness. I truly believe that. Whether I make $1.98 or way more than that, it’s the company you choose – friends, family, colleagues – that contributes to the quality of life you enjoy. I would rather have a small number of good friends that I trust over a gaggle of backstabbing acquaintances. Quality over quantity.

Unfortunately. there are a lot of fake, petty, manipulative, self-centered people in this world who focus on the negative and try to bring others down or wish them harm in one way or another. Tearing someone else down to build yourself up is no way to be. Reality check: the world does not revolve around you. There is always someone smarter or better than you out there. It’s one reason I am always learning and growing professionally and personally. Get complacent due to arrogance, and you will fall behind. I have seen it happen. We should strive to help others and mentor if we can. I try to in my own way.

Anyway, I am thrilled to be starting year eight on my journey of independence. I love what I do, whether it’s the more traditional consulting arm and helping customers in that way, speaking at events, or training people. Mike loved to be outdoors and be adventurous, and I try to now have a bit of that in me as well. No, you won’t find me hiking or biking – not my thing. Ironcially, Mike always tolde me that he lived a bit vicariously through me in my world travels since he did not get to do it. It wasn’t a regret – he enjoyed his life at home with his family. He was happy for me, and I for him. So I carry his spirit for life wherever I go. Mike was interested in Australia and asked me to bring him back a boomerang on my first trip (which I did). I will definitely be thinking of him when I go back in a few months to teach in Brisbane and Canberra. I think he would have loved it there.

August 20, 2015

The Setup Experience in Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 3

Yesterday I blogged about one of the most important features in Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 3 and how it affects SQL Server – domainless WSFCs. I am genuinely stoked for that feature because it will open up some scenarios we have never been able to do with clusters. There are other cluster-related enhancements I will be writing about, but today is not that day.

A few months ago, I wrote a blog post entitled Need a User Interface for Windows Server Technical Preview 2? It’s Not On By Default. The title is self explanatory. With TP2, you had two installation options: Server Core and Min Shell. Since then, Microsoft listened to many of us and put a GUI option into Setup for TP3. Unfortunately, it was a course correction too much to the left. When you are installing Windows Server 2016 TP3, you get two options as shown in Figure 1: Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 3, which is Server Core, and an option that is Server with Desktop Experience.

Figure 1. Windows Server 2016 TP3 Installation Options

Hold the phone – Desktop Experience? Is my Server now a client OS? No!

Prior to Windows Server 2016, when you got a GUI for Windows Server, it was not Desktop Experience. Desktop Experience brings with it things like the cool Tron-like Windows background. Along for the ride are other things – like Media Foundation and Ink and Handwriting. Lord knows I need to use my N-trig pen on a server (NOT)!

Of course, you can simply run Remove-WindowsFeature Desktop-Experience and get rid of it, but why should we have to do extra work? A server OS – or any OS for that matter – should just work the way it should out of the box. The problem is, removing Desktop Experience does not remove things like Ink and Handwriting in TP3. In fact, you can’t remove them at all via the GUI as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Cannot remove UI features via Server Manager

PowerShell to the Rescue! If you run the following command:

Remove-WindowsFeature Server-Media-Foundation,InkAndHandwritingServices

it turns out you can remove them. So if you want to get rid of everything at once, just add Desktop-Experience and another comma. Reboot and you’re all set. Figure 3 reflects the feature removal in the GUI post-reboot.

Figure 3. UI after using PowerShell to remove features

You can also switch to MinShell or Server Core if you’d like via PowerShell as well.

I really do like a lot of what Windows Server 2016 is bringing to the table, but as I have always stated, Setup is your first introduction to any product. Make it a miserable experience, and people will not be starting off on a good foot. While I’m excited to use Windows Server 2016 and get my customers on it because of some of the benefits, this is putting a damper on the overall experience. But, it has to be said, at least Microsoft is listening. They put a GUI option back in … just the wrong one. Ideally Microsoft should give us three installation options for Windows Server:

Server Core
MinShell
Full UI (but not Desktop Experience, Ink and Handwriting Services, and Media Foundation)

That way admins can pick the OOB experience they want without any additional work.

At least Microsoft is listening to us and they made a well intentioned, but IMO misguided, change to the TP3 Setup experience. We will see what the next release brings …

May 8, 2013

Allan’s Adventures with Windows Phone 8

Some of you may have read how I feel about smartphones. For the past few months, I went back and have been using my old Sony K850i which on one level has been great. I went through my stash of phones and that 2007 model got the best reception – you know, like they remembered it was a phone. I then remembered why sometimes a feature phone – or at least an older one – can be annoying. You start carrying around additional chargers for proprietary ports (imagine yay in 1pt font) and the battery life on 3G was/is terrible. Standby is great, but if you talk, you’re lucky to get 4ish hours. For the past few months I’ve been honestly looking for a good, normal phone with great reception. Sadly, nothing – and I literally mean that – has fit the bill.

Regardless of form factor, I just want a good phone. The old Xperia X1 was a good phone even though it ran Windows Mobile. In the past, I had two bad Nokia devices and swore off them but I heard so many good things about the Lumia 620 and it’s in the size I kinda like as a phone, so I figured I’d give it a whirl. Its selling point to me: loud speakerphone. It’s true. The 620 arrived this afternoon and a few hours in, I want to smash it against the wall. Why?

Annoying Factor One: No Battery Indicator Unless You Are On the Lock Screen

So you’re probably saying, “But Allan, if you had done your homework on WP8, you would have known that.” Fair point. But it’s asinine. Every mobile OS at a minimum shows the battery icon at the top all the time by default. I know iOS does it, and all of my Android devices have. This piece of junk? Nope. There’s an app for that which you can download to put on your Start screen to show you. I”ll get to the app process in a bit.

How can Microsoft ship a mobile OS with such a core fundamental piece “missing”? Well, technically It’s there … just not when you want it. Jorge Segarra (blog | Twitter) pointed out to me that you can swipe down to make the battery indicator appear but it disappears. How hard would it be to make an option to display it 24×7? Not very I would think. Fail.

I think my old Motorola StarTac just called and laughed at the Lumia 620.

Annoying Factor Two: Changing Your Regional Info

The unlocked Lumia 620 I got was from Hong Kong apparently. This is not a big deal. On Android if I want to change language settings, you just do it and it takes. The punchline on WP8? You need to reboot for it to take effect if you want to go from Hong Kong to US English for how you display date, time, etc. Unbelievable. What year is this?

Annoying Factor Three: Apps, Accounts, Contacts, and Synchronization Choice

To solve said battery indicator issue, I figured I would download an app which needed a Live/Microsoft account. I’ve got one of those I’ve had for years and years. Since my data is off, I used WiFi to connect to the store. So far, so good. Here’s where we go off the rails. Now, I’m not an app guy. I could largely care less. These are phones for making calls. The only app I used for like 5 minutes when I was on WiFi was Draw Something. I had the American Airlines one, but meh – I’ll stick to regular boarding passes. I’ll kill a tree or 10 in my lifetime.

Anyway, so I was trying to find something to show my battery life and needed to use my Live account. I enter my info, find an app, and download it. Little did I know behind the scenes it took anyone in that IM list and added it to my contacts. WTF? Apparently, all new mobile OSes do this silly sync thing without asking you if you want to. On the Android phones I never had that issue because I don’t use gmail.

The story gets better. I had imported contacts from my SIM card already. That’s all I wanted. There was a filter button, but you click that and all of the contacts went away. In WP8 there is NO WAY TO JUST HAVE SIM/PHONE CONTACTS. Another WTF here. Even Android can do that. But we’re not even at the best part.

The only way to fix this? Remove the Live/MS account. Only way to do it? Reset the phone and lose everything. Yup. Epic fail here. On the Android devices I’ve owned and used, I could remove that account used for apps and go all native and totally disconnected without basically wiping the phone. Terrible, terrible experience. One of the worst I’ve had with any piece of tech in recent memory.

I don’t want to sync jack with the cloud or accounts. I want to use my SIM contacts and have this be a phone. I should be able to have that experience but apparently not.

Annoying Factor Four: MMS Messages

I hate texting but people sometimes feel the need to send me a text with a picture (another 1pt font yay). I don’t have a text plan so I’m already annoyed as is. Android and WP8 devices function the same – to get these infernal things, I have to turn data on. With a feature phone, they just show up with nothing special. I was wondering if WP8 would be the same as Android, and sure enough, it is.

Annoying Factor Five: The Start Screen

I’ve been running Windows 8 (the OS, not the mobile WP8) forever. I even have a touchscreen device (the Sony Vaio Duo). I like it. So the Metro/Modern thing isn’t a nemesis to me. But the Start screen on WP8 leaves a bit to be desired. I can’t put my finger on exactly why the OS works but the mobile OS doesn’t here. And no, I’m not looking for a desktop or file explorer on my phone.

So Where Does This Leave Me?

I don’t know. I’m only a few hours into the WP8 experience and I want to bash my head against a wall. Sadly, as dysfunctional and fragmented as Android is, it just kinda works and makes more sense to me. I’m far from a power user of phones, but WP8 is supremely dumbed down. You’d think WP8 – which is, let’s face it – targeted at people more like me who hate smartphones but can’t really get a feature phone would work for me but I’ve had such a negative reaction to it. The whole sync/contacts/reset thing really bothers me.

With WP8, many settings seem to be obscured. Android tries to obscure some stuff (for example, if you had to manually set up AT&T info), but you can ultimately get there. I’m not sure you can do that in WP8, nor am I sure I want to find out. I’m not getting an iPhone, the Android devices are better in terms of OS for my tastes but the smaller devices are not great phones and I don’t want a device above 4″ in screen (sadly, the Galaxy Note had great signal strength and could be a good phone; I don’t want a phablet attached to my head). Nokia’s non-WP Asha devices? I’ll pass.

Maybe I’ll just move to a cave and not have to worry about any of this. Or not. Time will tell. In the meantime, Ben will happily use his WP8 phone (he doesn’t like Android, BTW). Short of buying a Vertu Ascent, I’m proabably screwed. I shouldn’t have to spend stupid money to get a basic phone that is newer than 2008, works, and has a good signal. Oh, and isn’t a flip phone. Hate them, too.

April 29, 2013

AlwaysOn Is the New Active/Passive and Active/Active

Congratulations, folks! It’s official – as I predicted with in my Availability Groups FAQ just over a year ago, the term AlwaysOn has now become the new active/passive and active/active and annoys me just as much if not more. Every time I see it misused I want to proverbially stab myself in the eyes. I really tried to avoid writing this post. I truly did. But people have forced my hand because it’s become like using ur for your, witch for which, etc. – in other words, it’s just wrong and people need to start using the right words.

I swear people should be given a test: if you can’t use the right terminology, you can’t use the feature or speak on it. It’s ignorant otherwise and you’re perpetuating problems. This even goes for people I truly admire and respect – like Bob Ward (one of the best and most knowledgable people about SQL Server around PERIOD) who recently wrote what is an otherwise great blog on availablity groups, but is marred by literally using the wrong term (and see next paragraph for spelling of it; there is no space) the ENTIRE post. MS doing it (be it CSS or a PM) is especially egregious since it helps perpetuate the bad. ARG!

So what is AlwaysOn (one word, no space between Always and On – another common mistake)? It is a marketing term that covers two features in SQL Server: availablity groups (AGs) and failover clustering instances (FCIs). So their official names are technically AlwaysOn availability groups and AlwaysOn failover cluster instances (or failover clustering instances). Don’t believe me? Click here. A few of us had a spirited debate on Twitter awhile back, which I think prompted Jonathan Kehayias’ (blog | Twitter) blog post which predates this one. Part of the reason we had a friendly debate is that depending on who you ask over in SQL Server, AlwaysOn is either just AGs and FCIs, or to some, it covers all features that remotely have to do with availablity. Either way, it still does not equate to AlwaysOn = the availability groups feature.

As with the A/P and A/A, let me give you a bit of history. The availability groups feature in SQL Server 2012 went through a few name changes over the development of the product. It had a total of four (not necessarily in this order):

HADR
HADRON
AlwaysOn (yes, your eyes do not fail you)
Availability groups

Let’s start with the first two. If memory serves me correctly, HADR was the first name for the feature which then morphed into HADRON. HADR was around for a long time. HADR was around so long that there are still remnants of it in SQL Server (such as the AG DMVs) that are not being renamed. Truth be told, I liked HADRON. It is easy to remember (a key hallmark for anything marketing) and it rolls of the tongue easily. However, switch two letters and you have a disaster waiting to happen. For those with delicate sensibilities, I apologize but let’s face facts. I can see why they probably didn’t go down that road. To add to the comment about Bob Ward, take a look at the titles of some of the CSS blog posts. (As an aside, you should bookmark that CSS blog site. They always post interesting stuff.) Many still use HADRON. They’re not helping any here.

That brings me to the dreaded term: AlwaysOn. Yes, it was the feature name for AGs for what seemed like five minutes, but it’s the one for some reason that most of the SQL dev PMs stuck on and started using in things like presentations, so I think that’s why it stuck. I don’t remember when marketing co-opted the term and made it cover the features of availability groups and FCIs, but it happened. I think that was much later in the dev cycle, which is also I think why the damage was done and somewhat irreversible.

The the term AlwaysOn (with or without space) has a long history with SQL Server going back nearly 10 years which adds to the confusion. The term Always On (with space) was introduced in SQL Server 2005 to brand a program to certify storage vendors with SQL Server (example: Dell’s whitepaper; EMC and Hitachi also have similar ones). In SQL Server 2008, Always On (with space) was used to cover availability in general – much like how it’s SUPPOSED to be used in SQL Server 2012. Don’t believe me? Here’s proof.

I leave you with this: STOP USING ALWAYSON IF YOU ARE REFERRING TO AVAILABILITY GROUPS. Please use the right terminology. Just as active/passive and active/active are incorrect for FCIs, AlwaysOn is wrong for AGs.

In the immortal words of Bartles and James, thank you for your support.

February 27, 2013

Devs the New Superheroes and Rockstars? What About IT?

With the proliferation of smartphones and touch coming of age in the mobile and desktop world, we’re really starting to border on Minority Report territory. Applications are an end user’s interface into the online world, and they create the experience. Some are good, some are horrendous. We’ve all seen and used bad applications over the years. As a backend kind of guy who associates himself more in the IT space overall, it is all about the end user and/or the business. It’s something I have to remind some folks when I’m onsite doing work for them. We support them. Having said that, a few things lately have raise my dander – namely Code.org and this blog post (which I saw via Grant Fritchey’s blog post). Why do these bother me?

Let me say this up front: communication is a fundamental issue in many organizations and there’s enough blame pie to go around. Politics and other road blocks can slow any process down causing frustration everywhere. Poor communication and broken processes hurt more than help. However, process and communication should NOT be difficult. Implemented properly, they should be easy and transparent. Things like change management and source control are fundamental concepts in both IT and development, and should enhance things like high availablity. To me, they are cornerstones and core tenets of an overall availabilty strategy. However, how many of you DBAs use source control … go ahead … I’ll wait. In my experience, that number is very low. In a similar fashion, change control and things like testing are often viewed as a nuisance to developers and pushing direct to production can often lead to many headaches for DBAs. We annoy you, you annoy us; perfect recipe for a standoff.

I don’t disagree with the fundamental premise of Code.org. I remember getting started on a Commodore PET and then a 64 with things in BASIC like:

10 PRINT “HI”
20 GOTO 10

Even us IT guys need some programming skillz(tm). (See what I did there? I’m pandering to the hipster crowd.) Things like PowerShell or our very own Transact-SQL (T-SQL to those “in the know”) in SQL Server need you to understand at least fundamental programming concepts. Heck, there’s even WMI and SMO (among other things) if you really want to get adventurous in the Windows/SQL Server world. The longer video Code.org made is cute when the ask the kids what they want to be and when they asked them do they know what a computer programmer is. Most little kids want to be firemen, athletes, princesses, etc. That makes sense. Being a programmer is way too practical. I mean, you don’t see anyone at the age of 5 asking to be a sanitation worker or insurance broker, do you? I’m sure there are some kids, but they’d be a reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally small percentage. Kids are allowed to be dreamers. Adults need to pay bills and live in reality most of the time.

But that got me thinking – why is it OK to glamorize just programming in the computer realm? Everything else is as, if not more, important in terms of the day-to-day running. Do you think Amazon.com runs on a single web server and only one database server? Heck no! Both the application they have and the backend are designed to scale and be available. If you’re going to teach programming, kids need fundamental IT basics, too. Things like understanding about backups would serve them well even in their daily lives. How may times to we have to hear things like, “I lost all of my photos on my external hard drive/phone and I didn’t have them anywhere else.” People’s lives are wrapped up in digital.

As I said, apps are the gateway for people. Be it a browser or one on your phone, it makes sense to say that programming and computers should be a fundamental part of one’s education curriculum earlier in life. That part I don’t disagree with. But what they are not telling you about is how to make it all work – the full view of the application lifecycle. It’s one thing to write an app. It’s another for it to work well and perform. Many of us who are consultants would have less opportunities if applications were written properly and scaled and supported what they needed to. I see way too often that applications are often the barrier for upgrades in many environments, leading to many different – and hard – problems to solve as time goes on. How many applications in your environment – third party or custom – support SQL Server 2008 or later? I bet not all do. Or if they did, your company won’t uprgade to it, forcing you to stay on an older version of SQL Server for other reasons like cost … and this puts not only your environment at higher risk as time goes on for issues, but your skills, too. SQL Server 2005 is now nearly 10 years old and four (4) major versions old. That’s like dog years in the technology world.

Developers also make false assumptions – like availability is only IT’s problem. It’s not. There’s stuff they need to do, too, yet they will blame us for their application woes when the application barfs after failover. Too bad, so sad. Now we all live with the pain of your stupid decisions and blinders that you need to be part of the solution from day one, not part of the problem. This is true whether you are using SQL Server, Oracle, or anything else. DBAs are often the last to know about an implementation – and thus, take a lot of heat and blame if/when things go wrong. DBAs need to be in on the planning from day one.

The thing that got me the most was the graphic in the NoDBA post – namely the bit where he has “Heroic Developers” and automatically associates things like bureaucracy and delays with data management. Huh? Sure, DBAs can be a pain in the tuchus. So can devs. Or network admins. Or storage admins (DBAs never have problems with storage folks, right?). You get the point. As I mention, process is a necessary evil for things like availability. In his post, Martin Fowler does acknowledge that one of the negatives of the dev to prod approach can be something like “bypassing DBA groups may also mean bypassing operations groups that know how to keep valuable data backed up and secure”. Amen. But I still won’t allow a dev in production if I can help it.

The bottom line: in the real world, we’re all part of the solution, and may even be part of the problem to someone else. There’s a reason in most cases devs should not just push code – let alone untested code – out to the world. But IT also needs to be more aglie than it has been. That’s one of the things we do here at SQLHA – we help get organizations up to speed and during implementation, do not implement crippling process that does not work for anyone. This is one of the reasons why virtualization and concepts like the private cloud are taking hold – it’s a more agile deployment than procuring hardware for every new deployment. It doesn’t make it right or wrong, but it changes the dynamics. Smartphones and apps have changed the dynamics of even rapid application development. IT unforunately hasn’t always caught up to meet that demand.

It’s time for everyone to grow up. Kids should learn about computers right along with math and other key things, devs and developing applications is important, but so is IT. You really can’t have one without the other, so let’s find a better way to work together and start earlier. That way we can have less finger pointing later on. Deal?

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