"Dumb" question for all the DBAs...
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Dumb question... if you are a DBA and I came up to you and said "Here's a physical beastly box... 24 cores, ~140GB of RAM, plenty of flash storage... I need you to set up SQL 2016 on it and migrate this 10TB database from SQL 2008 R2" Assuming of course proper security and best practices, etc. Let's even "complicate" it and assume this 10TB database includes spatial data. How long would it take you? I have ZERO SQL admin experience other then slamming a few SQLs onto local machines or VMs and I think I could realistically get it setup and running in a day or two with plenty of breathing room. Yet, our supposedly experienced DBAs claim its going to take them 3 months!!! LOL... Unbelievable.
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Dumb question... if you are a DBA and I came up to you and said "Here's a physical beastly box... 24 cores, ~140GB of RAM, plenty of flash storage... I need you to set up SQL 2016 on it and migrate this 10TB database from SQL 2008 R2" Assuming of course proper security and best practices, etc. Let's even "complicate" it and assume this 10TB database includes spatial data. How long would it take you? I have ZERO SQL admin experience other then slamming a few SQLs onto local machines or VMs and I think I could realistically get it setup and running in a day or two with plenty of breathing room. Yet, our supposedly experienced DBAs claim its going to take them 3 months!!! LOL... Unbelievable.
In the corporate enterprise in which I now find myself, three months would be quick. Our latest "expedited" build-out took six months.
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In the corporate enterprise in which I now find myself, three months would be quick. Our latest "expedited" build-out took six months.
The last time our DBA group quoted us 3 months, it took them 9 months. I'm still "waiting" for them to complete tasks from like 3 yrs ago LOL. The team lead is horrible. So easily distracted. You basically ask him "how's it going" as a courtesy before jumping into work and you have to listen to his stories for like 30 minutes at least. Then somebody comes up to his desk and interrupts and he is distracted again for another 30 minutes. Rinse, repeat.
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Dumb question... if you are a DBA and I came up to you and said "Here's a physical beastly box... 24 cores, ~140GB of RAM, plenty of flash storage... I need you to set up SQL 2016 on it and migrate this 10TB database from SQL 2008 R2" Assuming of course proper security and best practices, etc. Let's even "complicate" it and assume this 10TB database includes spatial data. How long would it take you? I have ZERO SQL admin experience other then slamming a few SQLs onto local machines or VMs and I think I could realistically get it setup and running in a day or two with plenty of breathing room. Yet, our supposedly experienced DBAs claim its going to take them 3 months!!! LOL... Unbelievable.
SledgeHammer01 wrote:
I think I could realistically get it setup and running in a day or two with plenty of breathing room
Ee, I needed a good laugh after a day of truly dire football. Thanks for that! Hofstadter's Law It always takes longer than you think even when you take Hofstadter's Law into account.
I am not a number. I am a ... no, wait!
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Dumb question... if you are a DBA and I came up to you and said "Here's a physical beastly box... 24 cores, ~140GB of RAM, plenty of flash storage... I need you to set up SQL 2016 on it and migrate this 10TB database from SQL 2008 R2" Assuming of course proper security and best practices, etc. Let's even "complicate" it and assume this 10TB database includes spatial data. How long would it take you? I have ZERO SQL admin experience other then slamming a few SQLs onto local machines or VMs and I think I could realistically get it setup and running in a day or two with plenty of breathing room. Yet, our supposedly experienced DBAs claim its going to take them 3 months!!! LOL... Unbelievable.
Depends really. Other considerations are How it is being used Compatible issues. Migration window Integrations Connectivity issues How the data is being migrated Testing migrations Etc etc Depending on the complexities it can take the amount of time suggested.
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Dumb question... if you are a DBA and I came up to you and said "Here's a physical beastly box... 24 cores, ~140GB of RAM, plenty of flash storage... I need you to set up SQL 2016 on it and migrate this 10TB database from SQL 2008 R2" Assuming of course proper security and best practices, etc. Let's even "complicate" it and assume this 10TB database includes spatial data. How long would it take you? I have ZERO SQL admin experience other then slamming a few SQLs onto local machines or VMs and I think I could realistically get it setup and running in a day or two with plenty of breathing room. Yet, our supposedly experienced DBAs claim its going to take them 3 months!!! LOL... Unbelievable.
Not a DBA, but the first question is whether this is for internal use or will be exposed externally. If the former, why not just do it yourself? If the latter, then it will take time, with the actual data import not taking much time at all, but security, configuration, etc. taking a while. Plus they are probably overloaded with work.
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Not a DBA, but the first question is whether this is for internal use or will be exposed externally. If the former, why not just do it yourself? If the latter, then it will take time, with the actual data import not taking much time at all, but security, configuration, etc. taking a while. Plus they are probably overloaded with work.
We are a B2B data provider, so the database is behind a firewall and the web services access it. We devs aren't allowed to touch the databases anymore. The DB team lead locked them all down. I agree on that, you shouldn't have people randomly do stuff to production databases. Due to the slowness of the database and ETL groups, most of us devs just sit around all day. Nothing to do while we wait on those groups. What's sad is that even with all this time we give them, the databases still suck. They go down all the time, have lots of timeouts, etc.
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We are a B2B data provider, so the database is behind a firewall and the web services access it. We devs aren't allowed to touch the databases anymore. The DB team lead locked them all down. I agree on that, you shouldn't have people randomly do stuff to production databases. Due to the slowness of the database and ETL groups, most of us devs just sit around all day. Nothing to do while we wait on those groups. What's sad is that even with all this time we give them, the databases still suck. They go down all the time, have lots of timeouts, etc.
Throwing hardware at the problem may speed things up, but rethinking how the data is organized is also a way to get a good boost. I still stay set it up on your own, show it works and then have it deployed into the data center.
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We are a B2B data provider, so the database is behind a firewall and the web services access it. We devs aren't allowed to touch the databases anymore. The DB team lead locked them all down. I agree on that, you shouldn't have people randomly do stuff to production databases. Due to the slowness of the database and ETL groups, most of us devs just sit around all day. Nothing to do while we wait on those groups. What's sad is that even with all this time we give them, the databases still suck. They go down all the time, have lots of timeouts, etc.
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the databases still suck. They go down all the time, have lots of timeouts, etc.
I suspect they are living in the DBAs' natural habitat -- an ivory tower where they can formulate their ideal environment. The result being unusable. We have that too.
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the databases still suck. They go down all the time, have lots of timeouts, etc.
I suspect they are living in the DBAs' natural habitat -- an ivory tower where they can formulate their ideal environment. The result being unusable. We have that too.
We have 2 SQL devs that write the SPs. One of them is fairly OK, but tbh, I think his skills are antiquated and he has no interest in learning new stuff. He only knows Microsoft SQL and tends to develop SPs using tons of temp tables and tends to "work around" issues rather then fix them. The other dev is awful. Us devs suspect he is a former C/C++ developer who picked up a "SQL for dummies" book one weekend and decided to become a SQL developer. Just due to the way he writes SQL code. The first project they gave him, he released an SP that took 30 minutes to run!!! He actually released it like that. They've restructured everything many times over and have got it down to 5 to 10 seconds now which still doesn't meet the requirements LOL. 30 minutes to 5 to 10 seconds is a huge improvement obviously, but it just shows how bad the SQL is at my company.
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We have 2 SQL devs that write the SPs. One of them is fairly OK, but tbh, I think his skills are antiquated and he has no interest in learning new stuff. He only knows Microsoft SQL and tends to develop SPs using tons of temp tables and tends to "work around" issues rather then fix them. The other dev is awful. Us devs suspect he is a former C/C++ developer who picked up a "SQL for dummies" book one weekend and decided to become a SQL developer. Just due to the way he writes SQL code. The first project they gave him, he released an SP that took 30 minutes to run!!! He actually released it like that. They've restructured everything many times over and have got it down to 5 to 10 seconds now which still doesn't meet the requirements LOL. 30 minutes to 5 to 10 seconds is a huge improvement obviously, but it just shows how bad the SQL is at my company.
On the bright side -- you've found your problem.
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Dumb question... if you are a DBA and I came up to you and said "Here's a physical beastly box... 24 cores, ~140GB of RAM, plenty of flash storage... I need you to set up SQL 2016 on it and migrate this 10TB database from SQL 2008 R2" Assuming of course proper security and best practices, etc. Let's even "complicate" it and assume this 10TB database includes spatial data. How long would it take you? I have ZERO SQL admin experience other then slamming a few SQLs onto local machines or VMs and I think I could realistically get it setup and running in a day or two with plenty of breathing room. Yet, our supposedly experienced DBAs claim its going to take them 3 months!!! LOL... Unbelievable.
If it was me, the SQL 2008 already was a VM, so I would shut it down, duplicate the VM and then update the SQL itself to 2016 - probably a day work, with long breaks for lunch and beer...
Skipper: We'll fix it. Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this? Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
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Dumb question... if you are a DBA and I came up to you and said "Here's a physical beastly box... 24 cores, ~140GB of RAM, plenty of flash storage... I need you to set up SQL 2016 on it and migrate this 10TB database from SQL 2008 R2" Assuming of course proper security and best practices, etc. Let's even "complicate" it and assume this 10TB database includes spatial data. How long would it take you? I have ZERO SQL admin experience other then slamming a few SQLs onto local machines or VMs and I think I could realistically get it setup and running in a day or two with plenty of breathing room. Yet, our supposedly experienced DBAs claim its going to take them 3 months!!! LOL... Unbelievable.
sounds like the bottle neck is not the setup but the policy environment IE corporate and convulated. And yes a day or 2 would be reasonable if it was done in isolation. For us to get a new server up and running takes a minimum of 6 months, I have simple change requests, I mean add 3 fields to an SSIS export, that is over 12 months old and the business considers the requirement "critical". We all work within the constraints of our environment and your, and mine, sucks!!!
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH
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Dumb question... if you are a DBA and I came up to you and said "Here's a physical beastly box... 24 cores, ~140GB of RAM, plenty of flash storage... I need you to set up SQL 2016 on it and migrate this 10TB database from SQL 2008 R2" Assuming of course proper security and best practices, etc. Let's even "complicate" it and assume this 10TB database includes spatial data. How long would it take you? I have ZERO SQL admin experience other then slamming a few SQLs onto local machines or VMs and I think I could realistically get it setup and running in a day or two with plenty of breathing room. Yet, our supposedly experienced DBAs claim its going to take them 3 months!!! LOL... Unbelievable.
You can make anything last three months if you try hard enough. Whether or not that means your efforts are pointed in the right direction is another matter entirely. Push for an "as built" migration, where it is performed with an absolute minimum of changes, and no "improvements", being made to the data/tables/etc, along the way. Use the words "stable", "stability", and "solid foundation" a lot, when discussing it, and keep pushing the "one thing at a time" concept -- i.e. it's less risky to move it from A to B and get it working right before implementing anything new than it is to try to do both at once.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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sounds like the bottle neck is not the setup but the policy environment IE corporate and convulated. And yes a day or 2 would be reasonable if it was done in isolation. For us to get a new server up and running takes a minimum of 6 months, I have simple change requests, I mean add 3 fields to an SSIS export, that is over 12 months old and the business considers the requirement "critical". We all work within the constraints of our environment and your, and mine, sucks!!!
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH
Yup. My favorite dev story is that at one company I worked at, there was a change control board. You weren't allowed to touch code without their approval, so basically: *user or QA reports bug *bug goes to CCB *CCB reviews bug and decides if its worth doing anything about it *assuming CCB approved bug, it gets sent to dev group router *router routes it to proper mgr *assuming router got it right (1/2 the time they didn't) the mgr distributed it to developer for RESEARCH ONLY *there was no ownership of code, so a bug might get routed to a person who has never touched, looked at or even heard of that component *developer would research it, it usually took quite a while to research it, because you had to track down the original developer and ask them all sorts of questions to get up to speed *developer would report back the finding to the CCB *CCB would either approve, deny or request more info *if they want more info, rinse/repeat *only after approval could you fix it -- problem was, you general got approval MONTHS after you researched it, so you completely forgot everything about it -- no point in shelving the changes or anything, since they literally had thousands of branches, and you'd never be able to find your branch. So anyways, due to all the red tape, it actually took me 6 months just to change a bool from true to false :).
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You can make anything last three months if you try hard enough. Whether or not that means your efforts are pointed in the right direction is another matter entirely. Push for an "as built" migration, where it is performed with an absolute minimum of changes, and no "improvements", being made to the data/tables/etc, along the way. Use the words "stable", "stability", and "solid foundation" a lot, when discussing it, and keep pushing the "one thing at a time" concept -- i.e. it's less risky to move it from A to B and get it working right before implementing anything new than it is to try to do both at once.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
I've learned not to waste my time chasing after people here. If somebody important comes asking me for status, I just say "so & so is road blocking the project" and let them worry about it. Sometimes they ask me to follow up with the road blocker to which I usually respond "I've already sent them 4 or 5 emails on it with no response, I can send a 6th email if you want..." sometimes they want me to and sometimes they don't.
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Dumb question... if you are a DBA and I came up to you and said "Here's a physical beastly box... 24 cores, ~140GB of RAM, plenty of flash storage... I need you to set up SQL 2016 on it and migrate this 10TB database from SQL 2008 R2" Assuming of course proper security and best practices, etc. Let's even "complicate" it and assume this 10TB database includes spatial data. How long would it take you? I have ZERO SQL admin experience other then slamming a few SQLs onto local machines or VMs and I think I could realistically get it setup and running in a day or two with plenty of breathing room. Yet, our supposedly experienced DBAs claim its going to take them 3 months!!! LOL... Unbelievable.
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Yup. My favorite dev story is that at one company I worked at, there was a change control board. You weren't allowed to touch code without their approval, so basically: *user or QA reports bug *bug goes to CCB *CCB reviews bug and decides if its worth doing anything about it *assuming CCB approved bug, it gets sent to dev group router *router routes it to proper mgr *assuming router got it right (1/2 the time they didn't) the mgr distributed it to developer for RESEARCH ONLY *there was no ownership of code, so a bug might get routed to a person who has never touched, looked at or even heard of that component *developer would research it, it usually took quite a while to research it, because you had to track down the original developer and ask them all sorts of questions to get up to speed *developer would report back the finding to the CCB *CCB would either approve, deny or request more info *if they want more info, rinse/repeat *only after approval could you fix it -- problem was, you general got approval MONTHS after you researched it, so you completely forgot everything about it -- no point in shelving the changes or anything, since they literally had thousands of branches, and you'd never be able to find your branch. So anyways, due to all the red tape, it actually took me 6 months just to change a bool from true to false :).
Thankfully I work in a departmental IT group, the core team deal with that sort of crap all the time. For me a user gets up walks over and bitches in my ear, if I own it it usually gets the job done in minutes, days at the outside. If another dev owns the app I get in his ear if the user has not gone direct to him. We get to treat our development like a really small dev shop. It is only when we need access to the core systems and infrastructure that we hit a brick wall.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH
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Dumb question... if you are a DBA and I came up to you and said "Here's a physical beastly box... 24 cores, ~140GB of RAM, plenty of flash storage... I need you to set up SQL 2016 on it and migrate this 10TB database from SQL 2008 R2" Assuming of course proper security and best practices, etc. Let's even "complicate" it and assume this 10TB database includes spatial data. How long would it take you? I have ZERO SQL admin experience other then slamming a few SQLs onto local machines or VMs and I think I could realistically get it setup and running in a day or two with plenty of breathing room. Yet, our supposedly experienced DBAs claim its going to take them 3 months!!! LOL... Unbelievable.
To actually do a move, probably a day or so to get the new environment (machine, memory, etc.) set up and tested. Give a day to actually copy the data over. Minimally a day or two to write, prove, and run code to demonstrate to management that the data did, in fact, make it over intact (although that can then be used for other moves, so don't lose it). Going out on the proverbial limb here ... a week?
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Dumb question... if you are a DBA and I came up to you and said "Here's a physical beastly box... 24 cores, ~140GB of RAM, plenty of flash storage... I need you to set up SQL 2016 on it and migrate this 10TB database from SQL 2008 R2" Assuming of course proper security and best practices, etc. Let's even "complicate" it and assume this 10TB database includes spatial data. How long would it take you? I have ZERO SQL admin experience other then slamming a few SQLs onto local machines or VMs and I think I could realistically get it setup and running in a day or two with plenty of breathing room. Yet, our supposedly experienced DBAs claim its going to take them 3 months!!! LOL... Unbelievable.
day 1: get sql 2016, install. oh which version did you want? day 1-5: figure out licensing model. day 5: ok, i think i know which licenses we need. let me raise purchase request with accounting. day 10: oh, no we need a License advisor to come in and assess. day 30: license advisors came yesterday. now i can raise purchase. day 56: purchase approved day 60: acquired licenses. now can install. day 61: oh, we need that feature that was in enterprise edition. Ok, i will just install, oh, need different licenses. day 62: seek payment reimbursement from License Advisor for poor decision. day 90: all license correct. install, upgrade database. done you getting core or user license for that machine? and if core, damn, which my company that easy with money. What over $100k.
