I’m going to take a controversial stand and argue that backups are useless.
Over the last few months I’ve worked with a client of mine to test their Disaster Recovery procedure for one of their major in-house applications. This involved multiple several-hour meetings with anywhere from 5 to 10 people at each meeting, sometimes more. Each hour probably cost the client $1000s of dollars. The cost of running these meetings and tests probably cost the client well over $100K.
This is ignoring the costs of the associated hardware, the power for the backup datacenter, the cost of heating and cooling, and of course the licensing. I wouldn’t be surprised if they easily spend more than $1 Million a year in backups and the like.
And for what? A fairly low probability event?
I mean sure, if their system failed and they had no Disaster Recovery plan it could cost them 10s of millions of dollars in business and perhaps even end up putting 100s of people out of work. But they’d find other jobs. In the meantime, all that money spent on backups could have been spent on other things like lunches for for the employees (and maybe a pizza or two for select consultants). Think of the boost to the pizza economy that would have been!
So, don’t do backups.
Oh and don’t wear a mask. They’re hot, sweaty, and really not even .1% of the US population has died. And sure, you might get COVID-19, but you’ll probably survive. Sure, you might have some cognitive long-term issues, but hey, that’s sort of like the employees at my client above who, if the company went under, could simply find another job. I mean it’s not a big deal. Amirite?
Now let’s be serious. If a DBA came in to your business and said not to bother doing backups, you’d probably laugh at them. Do backups. And of course wear a mask. There is so much evidence it makes a difference. And, socially distance for now. And reconsider large family gatherings for the next month or two, if only to help increase the odds that you can have such a gathering a year from now.
Part of this post was prompted by a question on Quora from a user asking how to recover their database if they didn’t have a backup. I hated to tell them that it might be too late and there was quite likely little they could do. And I’ve read too many heart-wrenching stories from nurses who have had to hold the hand of a dying patient because they thought Covid was no big deal or a hoax. So, please, take precautions. Even if nothing happens to you, it may happen to those close to you.
That said, I will repeat an adage about backups I heard a few SQL Saturdays ago: “Backups don’t matter, restores do!” So do backups, but restore them every once in awhile to make sure that they actually work!
For the record, with my client, not only did the official DR test run go smoothly, we beat our RTO and RPO by huge margins. If disaster strikes, it’s highly likely this customer will weather it without threatening the future of the company.
So the past few weeks I’ve been writing about PASS in general and about Summit. And now like several of my fellow #SQLFamily members who have already blogged, such as Deb Melkin and Andy Levy, I’ve decided to post a post-Summit post.
First Impressions
Virtual Summit was better than I expected it to be. Let me actually correct that a bit, it was much better than I expected. Now, it was not as great as in person, but my fear was virtually it would completely lack any semblance of the social interaction that makes Summit such a great experience. And while the social interaction was greatly diminished, it was still there and that made it a great experience. I will add that Twitter really helped here, both with the #SQLFamily and #PASSSummit hashtags.
My Sessions
I was honored to have the opportunity to speak at two sessions this year. This is a grand total of two more than I’ve ever had given before. Initially I had been selected to give a session on PowerShell for DBA Beginners. I was a bit disappointed to learn it would be a prerecorded session, but took that in stride. I was very curious how it would work. More on that in a bit. A few weeks before Summit I was asked to take part in another session, this time a live panel session All About PowerShell Panel Discussion. I immediately said yes. And then was later reminded by my wife I’d be out of the house taking her to an appointment and back. This was going to complicate things. But I didn’t want to say no, in part because I felt honored to be among such great luminaries: Hamish Watson, Brandon Leach, Rob Sewell, Ben Miller. So, I decided I’d do it from my car in the parking lot. And since this would be live I was really excited for that, since I had been looking forward to the real-time interactions. The only other drawback was the timing. It was an 8:00 AM EST session on Wednesday, which meant it was one of the first sessions of Summit, and it would be live, so if there were opportunities for things to go wrong, this would be it. Other than Hamish being up at I think about 1:00 AM his time and a wee bit sleep deprived (or as he put it, the entire world now was on Hamish Standard Time) it went really well. He did a great job of moderating and we had a very good turnout and a number of good questions from the audience. I’ve written about PowerShell quite a bit in my blog and for Redgate and feel very strongly that every DBA needs to have some experience with it, so this was a great opportunity for all of us to evangelize a bit. I was really happy with the this session and can’t wait for the recording to be available. It left me in a very energized state for my session at 2:00 PM the same day.
I had realized several days before my 2:00 PM session that there was a benefit of having it prerecorded. I didn’t have the normal butterflies I have before presenting. It was done. I couldn’t change it. I went into it very relaxed. That said, I did make one change to my normal desktop setup. I added a monitor.
Multitasking at Summit for the win!
The upper monitor is generally my TV but has a HDMI input so I added that to my usual setup. This allowed me to have the ARS window up there so I could see questions and comments and answer them or moderate as needed. The lower left is the video chat window. Though in theory this was only needed during the live Q&A session at the end of my session, I opened it right at the beginning and was able to chat and share with others. You can see my accidental selfie in it. The rightmost monitor showed my presentation as attendees would see it.
After chatting with some other presenters I realized most did not go full-bore like I did and just did one window, generally the ARS window, or maybe the ARS window and their presentation muted in another. For me, the setup above worked well and I’d use it again. I’m used to multi-tasking like this and it worked really well. While I couldn’t modify the presentation itself on the fly in response to audience input, I could interact with the audience in a way I hadn’t previously.
One drawback of the system was while my presentation was on, I had no idea how many were actually “attending” it. Before it started the window with the link to it showed 143 people as “attendees” but I have no idea how many actually ended up viewing, but I’ve got to say even a 1/3rd of that number would have been a win for me. I was VERY happy with those numbers. Also the questions I got during the session and during the video chat Q&A after and then via email really pleased me. It seems like I met my goal of generating interest among people was a success.
Another drawback I realized half-way through (due to a mistake on my part of trying something) was that if you came into the session late, you started at the beginning, not at the same point in time as everyone who had started at the start of the session. While later on I think this is ok, I think during the session presentation times, folks should come into “where the session is at that time”. For me, it meant I had to figure out where most of my attendees were at that point in the session.
After I was done I realized, “that was it. My work is done, the rest is just fun now.”
Other Sessions and Events
I found myself, despite work interfering attending probably as many sessions as I might have at an in person Summit. These included Rob Sewell‘s session on Notebooks, PowerShell, and Excel Automation and LGBTQ+ and Pass Local Groups Birds of Feather sessions on Wednesday.
I also attended several of the keynotes and was especially blown away by the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Keynote by Bärí A. Williams. I would HIGHLY recommend watching that when you get a chance if you didn’t watch it before.
So That Was Summit
So technically that was Summit. I learned a lot and had a great time. But, I have to talk about some of the drawbacks and disappointments.
For the vendors, I think Summit was a bust. This is unfortunate. I think it’s just harder to do it this way. One thing I noticed is that some vendors advertised “one on one” video chats. I avoided them because I didn’t want to tie up precious resources just being sociable (I don’t have much vendor needs these days). But it turns out in at least one case it was really a 1:Many relationship and the vendor would have welcomed more folks just stopping by. I think that’s on the vendors for not being clear enough in their own descriptions. But that said, even with that change, I think an issue with “stopping by a booth” is there’s more pressure to make it solely productive and not about being social. I don’t know how to change that. I’ll also admit I quickly gave up on trying to collect my points or whatever it was like I would stamps at the in person event. I was told this was more straightforward on the mobile app, but I had no desire to download that, especially since I was attending from my desktop. That said, I think in general vendors struggle with making virtual events worth their time and money. That last one is important because it’s what makes PASS possible. So, perhaps it’s still worth showing a vendor some love and mention you saw their name at Summit.
Overall, I’d say I think the prerecorded sessions and the ARS/Video chat stuff went better than I had hoped for. I’d probably do it again if I had to. I really only had two issues. For the prerecorded sessions there was no way to “pop” it out or expand the presentation screen. You were forced to have he Chat/Comment sidebar at all times. This took up precious screen space. For some reason on the live sessions you had this ability. This should have been made available on the prerecorded sessions. Also, it appeared the session window did not scale. i.e. if you had a monitor with higher resolution, it simply kept a certain mount of space around the presentation itself. Overall, the session window did NOT take good use of screen real-estate. This was compounded by the fact that some presenters (me included) did not make their fonts large enough. On my screen when I was recording, the size was great, but once in the presentation window, for many nearly unreadable. I know at least one person left my session because of that. I’ll own up to the fact I should have better headed the recommendations and probably gone overboard on font size, but the fact that screen real estate was so poorly used only exacerbated the situation.
I was disappointed in the turn-out for the two Birds of a Feather sessions I attended. I think the timing was rough, especially for folks on the East coast and perhaps Central timezones. Honestly, I think the Birds of a Feather and some of the other social times should have had FAR wider windows of time, perhaps from lunch until dinner or past. Take advantage of the fact that folks are in different timezones to get more moderators. I know I’d have attended more Birds of a Feather sessions had they been available at times other than when I was making dinner (or eating my salad).
That aside, the one issue that quite honestly angered me and I felt there was no excuse for was the horrible closed-captioning. When I first heard about it I was excited because I’m a firm believer in accessibility. All speakers were told we had to have our sessions recorded early enough so that closed-captioning could be applied. Given the time frame I had wrongly assumed this included time for a Mark I human brain review. It was VERY apparent that the closed captioning was purely automated and had not been reviewed. Some of the errors were comical, apparently at one point I was talking about T-CPU and not T-SQL, and another presenter was creepily talking about skin. Other errors made the presentation at times seem senseless. I had more than one person comment that the real-time capabilities of PowerPoint did a better job in their experience. Pretty much every speaker I spoke with had similar complaints. So, in conclusion I’ll say, I’m not sure the point of having stuff in so early when current realtime tools from other vendors can already do a better job. If you have two weeks to review the closed-captioning, I highly recommend outsourcing it to a human to review. Or somehow give speakers the ability to touch it up (if that was a possibility neither I nor any other speaker I spoke to was aware of it, and it was not on our speaker checklist on the dashboard). Honestly, not only do I think there was no excuse for the poor quality, I think it did an actual disservice to any hearing impaired people trying to attend.
Finally
By the time you read this, it’s probably too late, but if you haven’t VOTE OR YOUR PASS BOARD if you’re eligible. I’ll be blunt, we’re at a crossroads with PASS and we may not have it a year from now. But no matter what happens, if you’re eligible to vote and failed to do so, I really don’t want to hear you kvetching about the future of PASS.
And while it’s too late to register for Summit, if you have already, remember, you get access to ALL the sessions for the next 12 months. Take advantage of that!
The important election season is here. No, I’m not a week off or 4 years ahead of my time. I’m not talking about the recent US election, I’m talking about one that is upon us in PASS.
In the past few weeks I’ve blogged about my speaker preparation timelines here and here. Tomorrow morning, the pedal hits the metal and I’m doing a live panel discussion on PowerShell with some great panelists. And then in the afternoon my pre-recorded session on PowerShell for DBA Beginners will be broadcast with me doing a live Q&A afterwards. I hope you can join me for both.
Over the past few months I’ve been promoting the SQL PASS Virtual Summit. I’ve tried to get as many folks to sign up as I can, but honestly, I’m not sure I made much of a difference. Most of the folks I know had already made up their minds. But I didn’t stop. I even was promoting it at my User Group last night. And I’ll say now, it’s still not too late to sign up if you want.
I truly do think that PASS Summit is one of the great things our community does.
But…
Yes, there had to be a but here. I’m not happy, and from the blogs, tweets, and private comments about I’ve heard, neither are a lot of a other people. We have to be honest. COVID and going virtual has hurt PASS in several ways, but very much financially. There may not BE a PASS in the future if things don’t change. Some folks want to put the blame at the feet of C&C, the organization PASS pays to manage its daily affairs. Others put their blame elsewhere. There are many recriminations and attempts at casting blame. I don’t want to dwell on that, other than to say often I think it’s misplaced and can be hurtful.
Let me start by saying that I don’t think anyone, on the board, at C&C, or otherwise is acting in bad faith or ill will. I know many of the people involved and I truly think they’re good people who mean well.
But, that said, I think things have to change. Initially I thought about running for the board, but honestly, didn’t have the time to do the research and background gathering I wanted to before I could submit my application to the nomination committee. I reached out to several of my peers and colleagues for their thoughts and received a lot of useful feedback. But the long and short is, I’m not running. Perhaps next year. However, that doesn’t mean I can’t help effect change. Nor does it mean you can’t either.
We can effect change by voting for who we want on the PASS Board for next year. The list is here at the bottom. Steve Jones also has a quick blog listing them and other links. Rather than reproduce what he wrote, use the link above.
Just like in the US elections, I think it behooves oneself to participate as fully as possible and that means doing your research on candidates and actually voting. I’m not going to make recommendations here. In part because I still have to do the first part and do more research. But I can say this much, though I’m not running this year, I am certainly voting this year. PASS is very valuable to me and I want to see it be the best organization it can be and to do that, I think it needs to change and I hope to see it change for the better.
So, I’ve promoted Summit, I’ve prepared my presentations, I’ve kept my User Group informed. And shortly I will do the last bit for this year, and vote. I hope you do to next year.
And in closing, I’m going to steal a line generally said at Passover: Next year in Seattle! In the original it’s a call for hope to meet again in Jerusalem and in that spirit I truly hope to be among my friends and family next year in person, be it Seattle, Houston, or another city.
This is a follow-up to my first part. But before I dig into it, I want to thank all the readers who check in on my post last week. I had the best week ever in blogging. And I’ll admit, while my ego was pleased with the numbers, I think what really warmed me heart was the number of my fellow #SQLFamily members who retweeted, shared, or gave positive comments about it. Thanks.
So, back to my speaking timeline. On November 11th I’m giving my presentation on PowerShell for DBA Beginners at 2:00 PM EST. I’d be thrilled if you joined me.
So, last time I wrote about this, I had ended with what my next steps would be.
October 20th around 10:00 PM EDT
Upload final version of slide deck. Yes, I could probably improve upon it (and looking back now, there’s 1-2 slides I’d probably like to fix, but oh well).
October 20th – 10:44 PM EDT
Confirmation email: slides were received. Excellent!
October 21st – Midday
One more run through. Basically nail it at right around 0:58. But now really worried, what happens if I finish early before the live Q&A? Will there be 2 minutes of dead air?
October 22nd-24th
Do nothing. I deserve a break. Right? Right?
October 25th – Late Afternoon
Record my presentation with Zoom. It’s acceptable, but I made a mistake or two. Worst case, if I run out of time, I can use this, but honestly, I want a redo. But, like a good dba, I basically have a contingency plan in place in case I don’t get time to do a redo.
October 26th – Morning
Decide to use OBS to record, in part so I can include a window of me talking. I think it’ll be a bit more personal and interactive than simply having slides and a demo with a faceless voice talking.
October 26th – Morning 30 minutes later
What was I thinking? Why go through all this trouble. This is more work than I want to deal with today.
October 26th – Morning 45 minutes later
Ok, this just might work! I’ve figured out how to get the overlay the way I want, but gave up on green-screening me against a background, but that’s ok because the thumbnail video is small enough my background is not distracting.
October 26th – Morning 1:00:08 later
This recording is nearly perfect. I think it ran over by about 8 seconds, but if they cut that, it won’t hurt anything. Honestly, I’d ilke one more try, but I can’t stand the thought of listening to my own voice one more time.
October 26th – Late afternoon
Wait until the kids are done with school Zooms and my wife has no more meetings to start the upload.
Several of my #SQLFamily members admit, some publicly, some in private that they missed the deadlines or at least feel better that they’re running as late as me. I feel for them and I’m glad that my timeline and tweets made them feel better about their own timelines.
Up until I had finally submitted my video, I had put off watching any other presenters talk about PowerShell. But now that I’ve submitted my video, I’ve decided to relax that rule and watch at least one other presentation on an introduction to PowerShell and start to think, “why didn’t I bring that up? Hmm, he’s got a good point there. Hmm, I should have covered that.” I start to have doubts about whether my presentation will hit the mark. But fortunately, upon further reflection I realize the other presenter took a different tack than I did and mine has a focus he doesn’t. Someone watching both will actually get useful information from each of these. Now I’m feeling better. In fact, feeling great because I think this is the way it should be, multiple paths to the same end point that can broaden your horizons. And given the time limitations there’s only so much any presenter can cover in a limited amount of time.
That said, I realize that Rob Sewell is doing a full-day pre-con called Introduction to PowerShell. I’m curious what he’ll cover and both am jealous he has a full-day to do this and thankful I didn’t have to come up with a full-day’s worth of slides and scripts! That said, I know this will be a great one, so highly recommend you attend. I’ve seen Rob present at lest once before and it was great.
October 28th – 6:40 PM EDT
Get an email from Audrey at Pass Summit asking if I want to be part of a part of a live Q&A panel with Rob Sewell, Hamish Watson, Brandon Leach, and Ben Miller at 8:00 AM on the 11th. I have to think about this? There’s some big names on that panel and they want lil’ ol’ me?
October 28th – 6:41 PM EDT
Reply, “Hell yeah!”
October 29th – Over the course of the day
Folks at PASS realize the world is round and that we all live in different timezones and 8:00 AM may not be the best time for folks living Down-Under. Of course their first suggestion for a new time is even worse. Finally Hamish steps in, declares the entire world is in the Hamish Time Zone and that the original time is fine and he’ll let FutureHamish deal with the lack of sleep. Fair enough!
October 31st – Morning
My wife reminds me I’ll be out of the house at 8:00 AM on the 11th. I start to panic, but decide, “I can do it from the car with my cell phone.” So this is going to happen!
November 2nd – 2:00 PM
Tech check with Zoom and all to make sure things will work for next week. Learn a little more about how the recorded session will work. Still nervous for the “live from the car” presentation, but do the tech with the cell phone as my uplink and it works.
It’s getting real.
Today – November 3rd
It’s election day and just over a week from my presentations. I’m excited. I’ve made it clear to work I won’t be available at all on the 11th and not much on the other days. This is going to be a summit unlike any other. I’ going to have to remind myself to actually “attend” it.
And now, finish up a few things and go vote.
I’m voting today for my kids and my friends and my family, blood or chosen. I’ll be voting for the future and for hope.
greenmountainsoftware 