Filling Big Shoes
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Comments posted to this topic are about the item Filling Big Shoes
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore RooseveltAuthor of:
SQL Server Execution Plans
SQL Server Query Performance Tuning -
Been there, done that, didn't get the t-shirt...
My run-in with "filling big shoes" came not long into my current position, I was hired as an MS SQL Server DBA, to work side-by-side with the Oracle DBA. Well, the Oracle DBA left for various reasons and I got tapped to ALSO manage and maintain Oracle (they're both databases, how hard could it be?)
Yeah...
Lots and lots of Google searching, trawling for Oracle guides to handle simple tasks like storage got full, patching (love or hate MS, at least patching SQL is easy-peasy,) and oh yeah, Oracle was in a RAC / cluster which Oracle does in it's own way. I handled it by being brutally honest when there was a problem, I don't know anything about Oracle, I'm working to find the solution as fast as I can, I want to be cautious with any solutions I find because I don't want to make things worse.
The good news is, I did manage to keep the Oracle install up and running, I managed to keep the customers (mostly) happy, and I think being honest about my Oracle abilities helped.
But it was a long, long, long 6 months...
And I will never touch Oracle again except for loading the Oracle Data Access Components so some of our SQL apps can grab data needed from Oracle databases (and, our group removed Oracle from our portfolio when Oracle licensing went wacky)
- jasona.work wrote:
Well, the Oracle DBA left for various reasons and I got tapped to ALSO manage and maintain Oracle (they're both databases, how hard could it be?)
Oh, ouch.
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore RooseveltAuthor of:
SQL Server Execution Plans
SQL Server Query Performance Tuning -
I would never admit my fear. Just step in the job and do the best that you can. Chances are no one will notice and in different circumstances you risk that fear spreading.
- Grant Fritchey wrote:jasona.work wrote:
Well, the Oracle DBA left for various reasons and I got tapped to ALSO manage and maintain Oracle (they're both databases, how hard could it be?)
Oh, ouch.
Oh yeah. I managed it though, I think there was only one production outage (the storage ran out) because I didn't know what to keep an eye on and Oracle uses it's own weird method of storing the database files so you can't just open "My Computer" and look at how much of a disk is used...
RonKyle wrote:I would never admit my fear. Just step in the job and do the best that you can. Chances are no one will notice and in different circumstances you risk that fear spreading.
I would disagree, admit to the fear, face it, and work past it. Perhaps, unconsciously, I have the "Litany against fear" from the Dune novels in the back of my mind:
"I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."
You're admitting to the fear, and facing it but not letting it rule you and your decisions.
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I've been somewhat in your shoes, Grant. My former boss, when he left for vacation or some other leave, would ask me to cover for him in meetings, make decisions on his behalf, etc. He didn't ask me to manage my co-workers, so that's different than what I imagine you're doing for Steve. My boss left managerial responsibilities to his boss. But, at least half of what you and Kelly are having to do, I had to do.
I admit that I never was open about the fear that I experienced. That's because it didn't occur to me to be open about it. I wish I had. I am impressed with you're being up front about it. And perhaps because I wasn't given the tasks of managing my coworkers, it was easier for me.
Anyway, I have full confidence in you and Kelly being able to step up to the plate and do the job. 🙂
Kindest Regards, Rod Connect with me on LinkedIn.
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I switched to a small company where you need to have a broad range of skills and be prepared to grasp any nettle.
I needed to have a solid grasp of SQL on various platforms, Docker, Terraform, Python, AWS infrastructure, GitHub actions, and more.
My main strength was SQL on various DB platforms with some exposure to Terraform, Python and Docker.
I learned a lot more about Terraform (and Terragrunt), upgrading various reusable modules from Terraform 0.11.15 up through 1.3, 1.7 and now 1.12. As part of that upgrade, I've had to plug in CICD, reusable workflows, linting, and terraform validate.
Those modules were designed to make it easy for people to consume them, but that came at the expense of those who have to maintain them. This has been a baptism of fire.
Then came a big migration piece that involved a whole raft of interdependencies, cross-account data pipelines and components. Honestly, it broke me. The amount I had to learn was like starting to learn the guitar on Monday and standing in for Eddie Van Halen on a Friday. It went from being a stretch objective to a stressed objective.
Deploying Terraform can take a lot of time because, under the hood, it is making several API calls.
I found that I had to learn a lot about the infrastructure that Terraform was deploying. There are gotchas, too. Utilities like tfenv and tgenv provide virtual environments for Terraform and Terragrunt, respectively. There are environment variables that tell these utilities whether you are running on ARM or X64 architecture. If these aren't set and you have the version for the wrong architecture, then it might work most of the time, but then not work or go very slow. Until you know these environment variables exist, you don't know if failures are because of something you did or something completely different.
Part of the process of learning is to read error messages carefully and do insane Googling to find out what they mean and what the potential solution might be. ChatGPT might help, or might make something up that you don't yet have the knowledge to reject.
In some cases, everything you deploy looks like it should be working, but doesn't. No log messages, no errors or warnings. This adds to the stress. How do you even start to diagnose such silence?
Terraform and its various providers (plug-ins) update frequently. Some companies, such as Snowflake, refactor their providers frequently. This can mean that something that worked fine yesterday might not work today. To this you add security scans where a new vulnerability is discovered and needs to be addressed urgently.
In short,
- Everything is in a constant state of flux
- There are a lot of moving parts
- You are right at the limit of what you know
- Not all technologies have a SQLServerCentral equivalent
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Be gentle with us
#ChallengingRoadAhead
Johan
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