| Getting and keeping fit Don't worry, this is a technical editorial, but the initial analogy starts a bit personal. For the past decade, I've been on a journey to get fit, facing setbacks along the way, such as surgery complications and broken bones, torn cartilage, and, most recently, broken metal implants. Throughout this time, my overall physical fitness has backslidden as I wasn't able to exercise for quite some time. In some ways, this personal struggle is similar to my experience as a database architect and administrator, highlighting how easy it is for system health to decline if not vigilantly maintained. Just as I've struggled with my physical fitness, falling into bad habits, and seeing my wellness regress, so too can database systems deteriorate without consistent care. Because of this, I often find it challenging to fully disconnect from work during vacations or sick days, not because I enjoy the work intrusion but because staying slightly connected can prevent more significant issues down the line. This simple reason has often saved me time and frustration when I return and realize what I had missed. Before I say what I mean by this, let me clarify what I don't mean. This does not mean less documentation. It actually means more. I don’t want to spend copious amounts of time when at the Magic Kingdom helping do repeatable things. I just want to make sure that I am not surprised with some change that will cause me to lose all the physical and mental cleansing from the time I have been off from work when I have to clean up a mess. This does not mean I want to be completely irreplaceable. Certainly not in a process sort of way, that is why we document. Being irreplaceable is a positive when it is because of an advanced skill set, not because you are only one who knows how to do some tasks. That is bad for both you and your company. What it does mean is that if some big decision comes up, I don’t want to regret missing it and getting stuck with a mess later. When I say big, that is a complicated term. As an administrator, you spend much of your time attempting to prevent disasters, big and small. You do this by designing/coding/configuring/overseeing work done to make your processes work perfectly. You want to get the design just right and keep dirty data out, and you also don’t want an extended power outage to shut down the business for good. But as a human, you want time off. So, if you ever want some free time to soar through a mountain in space, you can’t be there every second of every day. For example, say you are off for a few weeks, and it is discovered that you need a new column to store pet names in a form, which is needed in the next week. There was already a column not in use, so to keep things "easy," a decision was made to use that existing column. It would be bad if that column were named ExtraColumn1, terrible if that column were named ShoeSizeCode, and even worse if that extra column were named PetSize. At least ExtraColumn1 doesn't pretend to give you any information. If you don't know about the repurposing, ShoeSizeCode will confuse you when you see Fluffy (or Mr Whisker 13) as a value. If you are the person who is more or less regularly in charge of those decisions, you would almost certainly vehemently argue against such a mess. Renaming a column or adding a new column with the name of PetName with a reasonable data type like nvarchar(100) will take a bit more time…initially. However, it will cost far more in the time spent when someone is doing ad-hoc queries of the database and sees data that they can't interpret from context alone. This is one silly example; there are so many more examples of things that leaving others to manage while you are out that will make you queasy—for instance, messing up your backup systems, fouling up replication, changing settings that you don't notice in logs because when you come back to work…they are lots of other, more appropriate things logged. And if bad changes are made, like changing your diet from lean foods to pizza, you will have to fix it after you get back on task (along with all the other things you need to do that are waiting because you were off riding in teacups, rather than drinking from them). All it takes is for your system fitness (design, processes, etc.) to slide just a bit, and you could be on your way to a lot of work to get that fitness back. It's best to monitor and be involved for a few minutes daily so it doesn't get away from you, even if it means a few minutes a day not staring at Cinderella's Castle. Louis Davidson (@drsql) Join the debate, and respond to the editorial on the forums |
