Morning all

morning

those comments under Joel's post are crazy

my favourite:

a complete misunderstanding of life - her husband will be very disappointed to learn that the marriage is not about him

Hiya DBA people

hi

Quick question about selecting timestamps..

There is a stored-procedure on a postgres db, that selects: (Select (extract(epoch from now()) * 1000) ...

on a windows system that seems to result in an integer, on my ubuntu box, it's a numeric (..., 2)

so the question: does now() call into system code, and if yes, why does it not normalize the results to a certain precision?

> The extract function returns values of type double precision.

postgresql.org/docs/9.4/static/…

in other words I'd have to floor this myself after multiplication?

yes

@Vogel612 numeric?

round, floor, ceiling functions: postgresql.org/docs/9.4/static/functions-math.html

and cast to other type is you need

@dezso well a decimal with two digits after the comma

@ypercube ugh

I even noticed that the column existed in the other table

this clearly shows that I have to sleep a bit :)

So, I was having a conversation with someone in another SE room.

She said that her org was using MS dbs, and if they were to switch to another db, eg PG, they would have to fire everyone and hire new people. I didn't see why the DBAs couldn't adjust to a new DB. She said it takes years to become expert in a new DB.

Comments?

They could adjust but they would need time

and probably training.

I mean, if they solely use SQL-Server (and therefore Windows) for years, it wouldn't be simple to adjust to Postgres (and probably Linux) for all the DBA operations.

@ypercube So, are people typically specialists then? Or do they become so due to a monoculture?

And if/when this happens, are people actually fired? That seems pretty brutal.

@FaheemMitha I don't know. Judging from the Heap, SQL-Server guys have extensive experience in SQL-Server. Whether they would adjust to a different platform or prefer to leave for another company, it's personal I guess.

But there are professionals with experience in more than one dbms.

@ypercube Hmm.

@ypercube I'd certainly hope so. And is there a reason a job could not involve using multiple DBs?

and i'm talking about DBAs. A developer might be easier to adjust.

@ypercube I've gone SQL Server -> Oracle and then back to SQL Server. Some folks manage multiple DB types. However, quite a few roles are specific to a single platform, particularly in larger organisations.

Perhaps one could be more or less suitable depending on the job required?

@FaheemMitha There are many jobs that involve multiple dbms.

@ypercube ok

Sometimes you get people who find going from Windows to Unix or Linux to be a culture shock - more likely this than going to another DBMS platform.

@ConcernedOfTunbridgeWells yes, I see.

Windows and Unix are very different, that is true.

@ConcernedOfTunbridgeWells Amen to that.

I, personally, am a SQL Server DBA. However, at my company, we also have as AS/400. So I get to dabble in both but my primary focus is SQL server. It really just depends on your environment.

Hello

I'm the other side of the conversation Faheem mentioned above

@KrisGruttemeyer And is hopping back and forth major trauma time?

@KrisGruttemeyer What DB does the AS use?

@FaheemMitha Not really. It's challenging as many things are different but I just view it as expanding my skillset and getting exposure to other systems is a good thing. I'm certainly not as comfortable with the AS/400 but I know enough to be dangerous.

@KrisGruttemeyer ok

to give some context to the conversation: I am working in an organisation with ~3500 users

@FaheemMitha iSeries, V7R1. Power7, but going to Power8 in a few weeks

we have 150+ databases, all MS SQL

I had the impression that the major relational DBs had a strong family resemblance to each other. I've mostly only used PG though.

I am the developer who built a new application, mostly a database + CRUD web interface

and Faheem asked why I didn't pick PostgreSQL

Well, I asked what she was using, and remarked that the correct answer was PG. :-)

My position was that it would have been a very dumb idea to try to convince the people in my department to switch everything to Postgre, no matter what my personal preferences are

@KrisGruttemeyer Some proprietary IBM thing, presumably.

and one of my arguments were that none of them have any experience with Postgre as far as I know

@rumtscho I guess I don't see why you couldn't use PG even if other people were using something else.

(there are more arguments for that, but that's the one I've talked about until now)

That's what I did. At Duke. Some years ago. I don't remember people around me were using, but it certainly wasn't PG. Possibly Oracle.

@FaheemMitha Supportability. If no one knows PG, then writing code for it could make ti challenging to support should the preverbial doo-doo hit the fan

Maybe MySQL.

@KrisGruttemeyer Support by the DBA?

@FaheemMitha Are you aware of the effort needed for managing a heterogenous IT landscape when compared to the effort needed for managing a homogenous one?

@FaheemMitha Support by anyone would be challenging

For a small scale scientific project, you usually wind up being your own DBA. Whether you want to or not.

If one of my devs went and wrote a bunch of PG stuff, if things went horribly sideways, there would be FAR less people able to diagnose and troubleshoot any issues

@rumtscho More effort, sure.

@KrisGruttemeyer what kind of "horribly sideways" scenario were you envisaging?

The fundamentals of a relational database are going to hold true regardless of the host OS, or implementation of a particular RDBMS. The specifics of how to troubleshoot one will vary greatly between implementations otherwise there'd be no reason to go with one variant versus another

@FaheemMitha Anything, poor performance, locking/blocking, you name it

@billinkc Agreed. But does a small project really need so much troubleshooting?

@KrisGruttemeyer hmm

@billinkc yes, that's what I meant

@FaheemMitha It could if that small project becomes a large one

@KrisGruttemeyer if

@FaheemMitha if you have one project among hundreds which uses a different technology, it's not only the troubleshooting

@rumtscho well, maybe PG would then become more popular. :-)

@FaheemMitha If you have a lot of small projects, some of them will get large.

if you upgrade a server version for example, you can upgrade one test machine and then do all the others in one go

Once upon a time nobody used a free Unix-like system.

However, what people may not realize is these DBAs that have been there for X years are probably/should be familiar with the business processes the organization handles. They may not know the internals of the new platform but they understand that all the accounting has to be complete by the 5th business day or we face major fines from the regulators, etc

@rumtscho true

if you have different types of OS and DBMS on them, you have to do it separately for each combination

@rumtscho Also true.

But can't the developer (i.e. yourself) do her own admin?

so having one project which runs on a system different from all others produces lots of extra work and needs a different skill set making people less fungible, and that is a headache no IT director wants to have in their department

The major work in doing a DB app is writing/testing the code. In combination with whatever else is going on. The admin for that project is relatively minor overhead.

@FaheemMitha I can open a Chilton's manual and repair my own automobile but do I have all the tools and experience to know that the rattle is due to a bad universal joint or is it a tire separating from the tred.

@rumtscho fungibility is not a virtue for a programmer.

especially if what they win for it happens to be a warm glow of using a nice open source system

@FaheemMitha oh, it is. Believe me, it's very unpleasant to be the irreplaceable guy. Bad both for the organisation and for you.

@rumtscho I lost the thread there, sorry.

@FaheemMitha well, what would be the benefits for my IT director if I used Postgre?

@rumtscho we might be meaning that word differently. I mean, you don't want to be someone who is interchangeable with lots of other people. And I think it could be quite good for the irreplacable guy. Hard to be fired and all that.

@rumtscho I didn't realise your IT director was concerned about benefits. :-)

I don't even know what an IT director is. Like the CTO?

@FaheemMitha If a decision I make comes at a high cost for him, I'd be lucky if he asks about the benefits before simply guilotinning it

@rumtscho What kind of cost? Exploding machines?

@rumtscho Not if the devs are adminning their own project.

Weird thought for the day: Nigeria has a Shanghai and a Mumbai more population than Japan.

It helps to know that Shanghai is 4 DFW in population and Mumbai is 2 DFW in population

Point being: if you took another Tokyo, and added it to Japan, you would have Nigeria

In the places I worked, I'd have laughed hysterically at the idea that anyone would do admin for me. I knew so much more than any of them.

@FaheemMitha yes, call him the CTO. Or whichever level in the IT food chain will have to deal with the pain of the heterogenous landscape.

@FaheemMitha Then you worked at very strange places.

It is not supposed to work that way. The admins exist for a reason.

I remember trying to get the main DB guy for my org to help me a little bit with my project. He was comically clueless.

@rumtscho probably at small shops.

@rumtscho UNC and Duke University, mostly. I don't know if I would call them strange.

@ypercube OK, if the shop is so small that it does not have DB admins, I can imagine the devs getting the DBA role for their own project

The person I'm talking about was supposed to be the DB support for maybe a few hundred people. I don't know exactly.

@FaheemMitha OK, now that you have left (say Duke), does your project still run?

Who is taking care (admin) of it?

The guy I was working for got that db guy as a co-author on my project. I really should have taken him off.

@ypercube Of course.

@FaheemMitha and did these few hundred people use resources provided by this DBA's organisation unit?

@ypercube It's just some code. You run the code to set up the db. No sweat.

I'm not saying it's the world's best db application.

If every developer is in charge of their database, how will you ensure that basic best practices are defined and enforced? Take something as simple as a backup - how many questions have been posted to this forum from people that didn't have a sound backup and recovery strategy.

@rumtscho I suppose they must have done. They certainly weren't doing their own DB admin. This was a clinical trials outfit.

did his department have a farm of DB servers which provided standardized instances for customers, and did you use one of these instances?

If your business is subject to regulations (SOX, SAS70, HIPPA, PCI, PII) do you as the business owner really want to have every developer responsible for the success or failure of your corporation?

@billinkc Well, it depends on the db. I think a scientific db can be different. @rumtscho's is just importing from text, probably.

@rumtscho They ran db servers. And people used them. I didn't - I don't think I had permission.

Or did you install the DBMS of your choice on a machine you had, and expected this DBA to know more about it than you?

@FaheemMitha It's much of a db project then. Just an installation script/procedure?

because if this is the second, that's exactly my point

@rumtscho Well, the issues were not DB specific.

@ypercube Yes, not much of one. That was my point - see the word "small" above.

But he didn't seem to actually know much at all about DBs. And seemed even less interested in learning.

I used to lean quite heavily on #postgresql. I guess if dba.sx had been around, I would have used that too.

That guy - was just useless.

There is nothing wrong with doing that, if it is clear from the start that the project won't be integrated with the rest of the existing systems

@rumtscho Nothing wrong in doing what?

Are there plans for your project to be integrated with the rest of the system?

@FaheemMitha getting your favorite DB and administrating you to the best of your knowledge

@FaheemMitha it already is

@rumtscho Ok

@rumtscho Ah. Ok, if it is an integrated part of the system, I guess it makes sense to use the stuff in place. That wasn't the case for me.

in the sense that it is running on a DB server which has dozens of other databases, gets administered by a dedicated person, is part of the general backup strategy, gets updates whenever it needs them, etc.

@rumtscho ok

It isn't integrated in the sense of exchanging much information with other systems, although it uses our Active Directory.

@rumtscho Oh.