Buck Woody : Virtualization

Should I learn Cloud Computing Next?

BuckWoody — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 13:45:42 GMT

My previous role at Microsoft was in the SQL Server team. I spent quite a bit of time there, and had some really great experiences. I was able to travel and speak as well as doing my “regular” job in the programming team, so I got to meet a lot of people. I also teach at the University of Washington, and see a lot of companies and students in that role. Last year I moved into the Windows and SQL Azure team, and from all of those sets of experiences I am now getting the same question quite frequently:

“What should I learn next in my technical career? Cloud Computing? Azure, something else?”

Well, I don’t think it’s a great idea to leave something that you know well to start out in a new area, just for the sake of change. If you enjoy what you’re doing and where you’re doing it, the key there is to enhance that value as much as you can. If, however, you are looking to stay on the cutting edge, or you’re looking to make a change for other reasons, there are a few places that I’m finding are evolving quickly. I’ve also found that in a new market, be a generalist, in a mature one, be a specialist. It’s all about supply and demand, so whatever is needed, try to fill that role.

Note that these are my observations. My particular set of customers and students stretch across the US and into Europe, so I don’t have as much visibility into the Asia region. You may find that your area has a different emphasis, so your mileage may vary. These are the areas that I am finding that have a growing interest, and places where I see people getting new jobs. Most of these are within companies, but that doesn’t mean you can’t use these skills as a self-employed consultant.

Security

Just like the “junk drawer” we all have in our kitchens at home, the data we store on our systems is often out-of-sight, out-of-mind in both IT and in a company. But with the latest high-profile break-ins, hacks, leaks and just plain thefts companies are starting to realize that a security breach hits the bottom line, in their reputation, and in their ability to attract and retain customers. So your next move - before you consider Windows Azure or anything else - should be security.

Am I suggesting that you leave your current role and become a general security specialist? Well, you could do that, but you would actually raise your profile significantly right in your current role if you become an expert in hardening the areas you are responsible for. Make sure that management and the rest of your team know that you’re the “go-to” person for security in your area. You’re not only helping your career, you’re helping your company and you’re helping my data - and yours - stay private.

Virtualization

Many companies are afraid to trust the cloud, often because of security. So they take an interim step of using Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), often on-site and controlled by the IT department, which is a “private cloud”. In all aspects of computing, this has an impact. While the service model (how things are deployed automatically) comes later, you first have to be familiar with virtualization. So take time after you learn about security and find out how virtualization works, how each vendor implements it, and how it impacts your area.

Cloud Computing Technologies

It’s everywhere. Open any technical magazine or navigate to any IT website and you’ll see the cloud mentioned. Your company is hearing it, so you need to learn it. I recommend understanding the difference between IaaS, PaaS and SaaS, and of course learning Windows Azure. I have a full learning plan here that will get you started. Again, it’s not something that will necessarily replace what you have today - but it should certainly be an option for your computing paradigms going forward.

Departmental Application Development

Wait - am I talking about something like <gasp> Microsoft Access programming? Why yes, I am. But not necessarily Access. Let me explain.

Because of the cloud, savvy technical business folks can “go around” IT with a simple credit-card. When they need to author a simple application to do what they need to do and share it amongst themselves, they may just do that without you. And they might use Access, or any number of other technologies. I’ve been seeing this quite a lot lately.

So why not help them? Hold some classes in proper, secure lightweight application design. I recommend Lightswitch, personally - it was designed for this very purpose. Or any programming language that you’re comfortable with. Just show them the right way to either write the code themselves, or the right way to engage you to do it.

Code that Writes Code

BuckWoody — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:01:40 GMT

I have scripts that re-create my databases for testing and development purposes. But sometimes I want to take the data from a set of tables and move it as well – I could use SSIS, or a SELECT INTO statement, but what if I want to “re-set” the data to a point in time? In other words, load it with some “base data”?

I thought this might be a good place to demonstrate “code that writes code”. No, it isn’t that big of a deal – most DBAs know how to do this, but in the interest of those who don’t, I thought I would share.

So the end result I want in this case is to have a bunch of INSERT statements that contain my base data from a table where that data already exists. I could script out the table from SSMS and use the replacement parameter feature to fill out each record individually:

I have a table in one of my databases that I right-clicked to show the INSERT statement:

-- Person

INSERT

INTO [WAVS].[dbo].[Person]

([PersonName]

,[Street]

,[CityStateZip]

,[PersonType])

VALUES

(<PersonName, varchar(150),>

,<PersonStreet, varchar(100),>

,<PersonCityStateZip, varchar(255),>

,<PersonPersonType, varchar(100),>)

I can use the CTRL-SHIFT-M keys to replace the VALUES part with the values I want.

But I already had a copy of that “base” data before I turned the database over to the testers. Before I give it to them, I run code like this on each table – this one is for the Person table above (note that there should only be two lines here):

SELECT

'INSERT INTO [WAVS].[dbo].[Person] ([PersonID], [PersonName], [Street], [CityStateZip], [PersonType]) VALUES (' + CAST([PersonID] AS VARCHAR(5))+ ', ''' + [PersonName]+ ''', ''' + [Street]+ ''', ''' + [CityStateZip] + ''', ''' + [PersonType] + ''')'

FROM

[WAVS].[dbo].[Person]

When I run this code, I get these statements:

INSERT INTO [WAVS].[dbo].[Person] ([PersonID], [PersonName], [Street], [CityStateZip], [PersonType]) VALUES (1, 'Buck Woody', '123 Here Street', 'Covington, WA 98042', 'Vet')
INSERT INTO [WAVS].[dbo].[Person] ([PersonID], [PersonName], [Street], [CityStateZip], [PersonType]) VALUES (2, 'Jane Doe', '231 Function Ave', 'Redmond, WA 98052', 'Vet')
INSERT INTO [WAVS].[dbo].[Person] ([PersonID], [PersonName], [Street], [CityStateZip], [PersonType]) VALUES (3, 'Diane Wilson', '34251 Appt 3 7th Street', 'Seattle, WA 98061', 'Vet')
INSERT INTO [WAVS].[dbo].[Person] ([PersonID], [PersonName], [Street], [CityStateZip], [PersonType]) VALUES (4, 'John Kelso', '89734 Country Lane', 'Covington, WA 98042', 'Farmer')
INSERT INTO [WAVS].[dbo].[Person] ([PersonID], [PersonName], [Street], [CityStateZip], [PersonType]) VALUES (5, 'Marjorie Christian', '9893452 Changein Lane', 'Maple Valley, WA 98072', 'Farmer')
INSERT INTO [WAVS].[dbo].[Person] ([PersonID], [PersonName], [Street], [CityStateZip], [PersonType]) VALUES (6, 'Joanne Lister', '98904 Mapelwood Drive', 'Spokanne, WA 98045', 'Zoo Worker')

All I have to do is copy those statements into my “initialization” scripts just after the table creations, and then I can run them at will to create my new database (I know I can take a backup – I have reasons for not doing that).

There are two keys for writing code that writes code: The first is to simply use the single tick (') to write out what the end code should say (INSERT INTO, in my case) and then to use multiple ticks (''') when you want the code to contain the ticks themselves. This “escapes” the characters so that you can embed them. If you use SSMS to write your queries, the color coding will look as mine does above. You’ll also need to remember to CAST or CONVERT any data types that don’t concatenate (+) together well. In my case I had to CAST an integer value – but that’s OK, since it is only printing to the screen and I don’t include the ticks, the INSERT works fine.

You can use this method not only with INSERTS, but with lots of operations. And you can also even fire off the code once you create it – but that’s another post :)