We are very excited to announce that Allan will be delivering his newly revamped high availability course covering SQL Server 2008, 2008 R2, and 2012 from March 19 – 21 in Woburn, MA. It is hopefully the first of quite a few deliveries in 2012. This course is being done in conjunction with Data Eduction. For full information, click here.
If you register before February 1, 2012, use the code EARLYBIRD and get a $200 discount.
Last week, I wrote a blog post entitled “It’s Just Setup – Who Cares?”. What I didn’t do was go into the other side of that equation: uninstalling/removing an application. As bad as some software installers can be, trying to remove that software can sometimes be 100x more painful. I’m sure you’ve experienced this either on your own personal machines (regardless of OS) or your enterprise servers at some point in your lifetime.
To be honest, this annoys me much more than a bad installation process. In my mind, any piece of software that gets put onto your computer should be able to be removed completely with none of its traces or hooks still around. I think that’s not an unreasonable expectation … or is it? I mean, I’ve seen numerous times where the odd folder/directory, configuration file, or set of registry entries is still hanging around like that bad party guest who doesn’t want to leave at the end of the end of the night.
Oh, and don’t get me started on programs that will require a reboot to complete the software removal. I have never seen an uninstaller tell me that little fact when the process begins, and I love one of these two situations more:
Do you want either of these situations on your computer – especially a mission critical server? Heck no! If whatever you’re trying to eradicate from your computer or server does require a reboot, at least give me the option of when I choose to do the reboot. Again, I don’t think this is a completely unreasonable request of any software vendor. I am not thrilled I’m left in a pending state, but at least I control my own destiny.
Both of these blog posts underscore one thing that holds true: pick your software carefully and test things like install and uninstall before you go live. Knowing is better than flying blind, especially in a production environment that has very tight SLAs for uptime. That 128GB server isn’t coming back online in 30 seconds after a reboot.
It’s amazing how far we’ve come in the near 20 years I’ve been working with some form or another of SQL Server or another RDBMS. But I’ve seen one constant: bad configurations – especially Setup or the underlying OS – can lead to big problems. Think about it for a moment. Your journey on your platform of choice does not begin when it goes live in production. It begins from day one of the decision, and follows through to when the hardware comes in. You get the idea. Skip a step along the way, make a shortcut here or there, and you may wind up with some expensive downtime in the future.
Having said that, the focus in this blog post is really going to be on the software installation process. Sometimes the problems associated with such deployments are purely human error, poor planning, or both. Both of those scenarios are, for the most part, preventable. There’s no excuse to have a poorly planned implementation these days or a way to test things out since virtualization has become cheap and easy. My ire is going to focus on something that users and implementers alike can’t control: crappy installation/setup code. It’s not rocket science to have a decent Setup UI as well as scripted implementation for setup … or is it?
The installer is one of the most important pieces of the software experience. A good one leaves a positive impression, a bad one leaves a horrible taste in your mouth. Some can be overly complex, others too simple. There’s a happy medium.However, the end result should be a fully installed, stable application. Sometimes this is not the case. Being an availability guy, you can see where this causes some issues for me. The reason this happens is poor code, or worse, poorly tested code. There’s NO excuse for an installer not working right. But I believe that in most companies (not pointing any fingers), the focus is on features and functions – not such a seemingly simple, yet important, piece of the puzzle. I bet Setup is often an afterthought. I have no proof of that, but it’s a strong hunch. Much like what I do, Setup isn’t sexy. It doesn’t sell product. Features do. Planning and availability don’t have instant gratification like taking a query from 20 minutes to 2 seconds, but boy, not having that stuff or doing it right will bite you later when you are in a fix.
With customer environments being increasingly complex, I’ve seen some stupid things over the years. For example, assuming everything will go on a C drive or have “cluster support” that really isn’t any kind of support – installing on each node as if your product is standalone is NOT really what I’m looking for. I shouldn’t have different installation experiences via command line, say, via Server Core or the “regular” version of Windows. Don’t run stupid checks and tests that don’t matter, yet consume large amounts of time. Yet I see these types of things all the time.
Patching processes are just as important. I should hopefully be able to patch your software with minimal to no downtime. Do NOT reboot my box without me allowing it or choosing when it happens since you may not be the only thing running. Patching is an extension of your Setup processes, and MORE important when it comes to availability since systems are already in production. Some of us are trying to maintain SLAs that will be blown by your automatic rebooting.
So to all you vendors providing software: wise up. Be more flexible. Understand that one size does not always fit all. TEST YOUR STUFF. Don’t increase my downtime – especially via unprompted (and unexpected reboots). And for heaven’s sake, be transparent. Don’t do things behind the scenes that will only be discovered later by reading logs or finding files in places that are not expected.
Hello everyone! I’m waiting for my flight home after my vacation in Japan. It was exactly the break I hoped it would be. I was also glad I got to catch up with a good friend who has been living in Japan for awhile. It’s the little moments in life that make it all worth living. I spent the entire time in Tokyo and got to cross a few things off the proverbial bucket list. It was funny getting off the plane here at O’Hare. The USA has a different vibe – that’s the only way I can describe it. The people talking loudly on cel phones, not caring who hears you … those kinds of things. When you go abroad you get a different perspective on things. I love living here, but I wish a bit more civility would sometimes creep in back on these shores.
Believe it or not, I really didn’t work on vacation. Well, that’s not 100% true – I did answer a handful of e-mails, but that was it. And I looked at my scores from my two PASS sessions. I will just say I was disappointed in myself and leave it at that. It was definitely an off year. The last time I had an off year I believe was when PASS was at the Gaylord in Fort Worth, TX. I could sit and make excuses – like literally having less than a week (more like a few days) to get the demos up since I was using a later build and that the Jewish holiday was right in the middle of that – but I’m not. Any problems fall squarely on my own two feet, and I already know what I’d change in retrospect. All this proves is that no matter how long you’ve been doing it, you can take a lump.The only real comment that surprised me was one basically wondering why I was showing how to set up Windows Server Core when someone else would do it. That’s why many DBAs have issues – they have SQL blinders on. But that’s besides the point.
The question then becomes: how do you deal with that? For me, I’m going to just get over it and move on. No need to dwell on it. Take your knocks, read the feedback, and improve. Next year will be better, and I’m actually excited about a lot of stuff coming up in 2012. More on that in a few days.
In the meantime, I’m going to readjust to the time zone here and get back to work. Hope to see everyone on the Quest webcast this upcoming Thursday.
[Before anyone e-mails or corrects me: there's a display issue with the blog. The apostrophe for I'm in the title for some reason isn't displaying.]
Can you believe it’s December already? Where has this year gone? I’ve certainly had the extremes – from the excitement and honor of pre-conference sessions at SQLBits 9 and PASS as well as taking on a business partner in Ben DeBow, to the lowest of lows with the death of my friend Mike Kenwood. Honestly, I don’t have much to kvetch about either in my personal or professional life. Heck, in 2011, I’ve also been able to cross a few major bucket list items off this year. I visited the Porsche Museum and got a factory tour (highly recommended), I auditioned for Roger Taylor of Queen, attended an Eagles game at Lincoln Financial Field, and after next week, I can finally say I saw a concert at Budokan in Tokyo. Not too shabby.
Anyway, while I took a vacation to California back in late August for a week or so, it really didn’t feel like I took one at all. Everything changed after I found out my friend Mike had passed away. It’s amazing how one event can totally change everything. I know I said my batteries were recharged after that CA vacation, but I’m going to take my own advice in that blog post and manage myself by taking a vacation to one of my favorite places on the planet, Tokyo. I know going there is on Mr. Ozar’s “to do” list for 2012. 
(Oh, and thanks for the shout out here, Brent – not so sure I’m cool, though.)
Don’t get me wrong – I know that going on vacation is a “first world” problem to have, but as thankful as I am that I’ve been nose-to-the-grindstone busy (a heartfelt thank you to all of my customers and anyone else I’ve worked with or trained), a major life event such as what I’ve been through via Mike has to affect you in some way. I also turned 40 this week (new decade – yikes!), and I’m definitely not getting any younger. With all the heaviness and heads down after August, it’s time to pop up and smell the roses and appreciate life and not worry about SQL Server for a brief moment. I also want to celebrate the spirit and zest Mike had for living. He always loved hearing about my adventures and I’ll miss sharing them with him, so in a way, this jaunt will also a bit of a tribute to him. I haven’t been back to Tokyo since this time in 2009 when I stopped there on my way to do some training in Singapore.
Don’t worry, I’ve got some exciting SQL Server stuff planned for 2012 – some of which will be announced soon, others which you already know about (like my new mission critical book). I’ve even got one more trick up my sleeve in a few weeks, so I’m not done with 2011 yet. I’ll post a link to that once I have it.
[EDIT: So it looks like Quest put a link up to my 12/15 webcast and didn't tell me it went live - that's the 2011 thing I'm referring to. I saw Jen McCown post it on Twitter right after I published this blog post, and it's now up on the Events so go and register!]
If you contact me while I’m away, I’ll get back to you mid-December when I return Stateside. Cheers!