DBA Rules of Thumb - Part 1

Over the years I have gathered, written, and assimilated multiple collections of general rules of the road that apply to the management discipline of Database Administration (DBA). With that in mind, I thought it would be a good idea to share some of these Rules of Thumb (or ROTs) with you in a series of entries to my blog.

Now even though this is a DB2-focused blog, the ROTs that I will be covering here are generally applicable to all DBMSs and database professionals.

The theme for this series of posts is that database administration is a very technical discipline. There is a lot to know and a lot to learn. But just as important as technical acumen is the ability to carry oneself properly and to embrace the job appropriately. DBAs are, or at least should be, very visible politically within the organization. As such, DBAs should be armed with the proper attitude and knowledge before attempting to practice the discipline of database administration.

Today's blog entry offers up an introduction, to let you know what is coming. But I also will share with you the first Rule of Thumb... which is

#1 -- Write Down Everything

During the course of performing your job as a DBA, you are likely to encounter many challenging tasks and time consuming problems. Be sure to document the processes you use to resolve problems and overcome challenges. Such documentation can be very valuable should you encounter the same, or a similar, problem in the future. It is better to read your notes than to try to recreate a scenario from memory.

Think about it like this... aren't we always encouraging developers to document their code? Well, you should be documenting your DBA procedures and practices, too!

And in Future Posts...

In subsequent posts over the course of the next few weeks I post some basic guidelines to help you become a well-rounded, respected, and professional DBA.

I encourage your feedback along the way. Feel free to share your thoughts and Rules of Thumb -- and to agree or disagree with those I share.

IBM Information on Demand 2013, Wednesday

Today's blog entry from Las Vegas covering this year's IOD conference will be my final installment on the 2013 event.

The highlight for Wednesday, for me anyway, was delivering my presentation to a crowded room of over a hundred folks who were interested in hearing about cost optimization and DB2 for z/OS. The presentation was kind of broken down into two sections. The first discussed subcapacity pricing and variable workload license charges (vWLC). IBM offers vWLC for many of its popular software offerings, including DB2 for z/OS. What that means is that you receive is a monthly bill from IBM based on usage. But the mechanics of exactly how that occurs are not widely known. So I covered how this works including a discussion of IMSU, Defined Capacity, the rolling four hour average (R4H) and the IBM SCRT (Sub Capacity Reporting Tool).

Basically, with VWLC your MSU usage is tracked and reported by LPAR. You are charged based on the maximum rolling four hour (R4H) average MSU usage. R4H averages are calculated each hour, for each LPAR, for the month. Then you are charged by product based on the LPARs it runs in. All of this information is collected and reported to IBM using the SCRT (Sub Capacity Reporting Tool). It uses the SMF 70-1 and SMF 89-1 / 89-2 records. So you pay for what you use, sort of. You actually pay based on LPAR usage. Consider, for example, if you have DB2 and CICS both in a single LPAR, but DB2 is only minimally used and CICS is used a lot. Since they are both in the LPAR you’d be charged for the same amount of usage for both. But it is still better than being charged based on the usage of your entire CEC, right?

I then moved along to talk about tuning ideas with cost optimization in mind including targeting monthly peaks, SQL tuning, using DC to extend a batch window, SQL tuning and some out of the box ideas.

I also spent some time today wandering through the Expo Center where IBM and many other vendors were talking about and demoing there latest and greatest technology. And I picked up some of the usual assortment of t-shirts, pins and other tchotchkes.

And I also attended a session called Fun With SQL that was, indeed, fun... but also pointed out how difficult it can be to code SQL on the fly in front of a room full of people!

Overall, this year's IOD was another successful conference. IOD is unmatched in my opinion in terms of the overall experience including education, entertainment, product news, meeting up with and talking to folks I haven't seen in awhile, and generating leads for consulting engagements. Of course, with 13,000+ attendees the conference can be overwhelming, but that means there is always something of interest going on throughout the day. And by the time Wednesday rolls around, most people are starting to get tired, me included.

Of course, I still have tonight and tomorrow morning before heading back home... so I may still post another little something later in the week once I've had a time to digest everything a little bit more.

In the interim, if you'd like other people's opinions and coverage of IOD, check out the blogs on the IOD hub at http://www.ibmbigdatahub.com/IOD/2013/blogs.

But for now, thanks IBM, for throwing another fantastic conference focusing on my life's work passion -- data!

IBM Information on Demand 2013, Tuesday

The second day of the IBM IOD conference began like the first, with a general session attended by most of the folks at the event. The theme of today's general session was Big Data and Analytics in Action. And Jake Porway was back to host the festivities.

The general session kicked off talking about democratizing analytics, which requires putting the right tools in people's hands when and where they want to use them. And also the necessity of analytics becoming a part of everything we do.

These points were driven home by David Becker of the Pew Charitable Trust when he took the stage with IBM's Jeff Jonas Chief Scientist and IBM Fellow. Becker spoke about the data challenges and troubles with maintaining accurate voting rolls. He talked about more than 12 million outdated records across 7 US states. Other issues mentioned by Becker included deceased people still legitimately registered to vote, people registered in multiple states, and the biggest issue, 51 million citizens not even registered.

Then Jonas told the story of how Becker invited him to attend some Pew meetings because he had heard about Jonas' data analytics expertise. After sitting through the first meeting Jonas immediately recognized the problem as being all about context. Jonas offered up a solution to match voter records with DMV records instead of relying on manual modifications.

The system built upon this idea is named ERIC, short for the Electronic Registration Information Center. And Pew has been wowed by the results. ERIC has helped to identify over 5 million eligible voters in seven states. The system was able to find voters who had moved, not yet registered and those who had passed away.

"Data finds data," Jonas said. If you've heard him speak in the past, you've probably heard him say that before, too! He also promoted the G2 engine that he built and mentioned that it is now part of IBM SPSS Modeler.

This particular portion of the general session was the highlight for me. But during this session IBMers also talked about Project NEO (the next generation of data discovery in the cloud), IBM Concert (delivering insight and cognitive collaboration), and what Watson has been up to.

I followed up the general session by attending a pitch on Big Data and System z delivered by Stephen O'Grady of Redmonk and IBM's Dan Wardman. Stepehen started off  the session and he made a couple of statements that were music to my ears. First, "Data doesn't always have to be big to lead to better decisions." Yes! I've been saying this for the past couple of years.

And he also made the observation that since data is more readily available, businesses should be able to move toward evidence-based decision-making. And that is a good thing. Because if instead we are making gut decisions or using our intuition, the decisions simply cannot be as good as those based on facts. And he backed it up with this fact: organizations  using analytics are 2.2x more likely to outperform their industry peers.

O'Grady also offered up some Big Data statistics that are worth taking a look at --> here. 

And then Wardman followed up with IBM's System z information management initiatives and how they tie into big data analytics. He led off by stating that IBM's customers are most interested in transactional data instead of social data for their Big Data projects. Which led to him to posit that analytics and decision engines need to exist where the transactional data exists -- and that is on the mainframe!

Even though the traditional model moves data for analytics processing, IBM is working on analytics on data without moving it. And that can speed up Big Data projects for mainframe users.

But my coverage of Tuesday at IOD would not be complete without mentioning the great concert sponsored by Rocket Software. Fun. performed and they rocked the joint. It is not often that you get to see such a new, young and popular band at an industry conference. So kudos to IBM and Rocket for keeping things fresh and delivering high quality entertainment. The band performed all three of their big hits ("Carry On", "We Are Young", and "Some Nights", as well as a bevy of other great songs including a nifty cover of the Stones "You Can't Always Get What You Want."

All in all, a great day of education, networking, and entertainment. But what will Wednesday hold? Well, for one thing, my presentation on Understanding The Rolling 4 Hour Average and Tuning DB2 to Control Costs.

So be sure to stop by the blog again tomorrow for coverage of IOD Day Three!

IBM Information on Demand 2013, Monday

Hello everybody, and welcome to my daily blogging from the IOD conference. Today (Monday, 11/4) was my first day at the conference and it started off with a high octane general session. Well, actually, that's not entirely accurate. It started off with a nice (somewhat less than healthy) breakfast and a lot of coffee. But right after that was the general session.

The session was emceed by Jake Porway, who bills himself as a Data Scientist. He is also a National Geographic host and the founder of DataKind. Porway extolled the virtues of using Big Data for the greater good. Porway says that data is personal and it touches our lives in multiple ways. He started off by talking about the "dark ages" which to Porway meant the early 2000s, before the days of Netflix, back when (horror of horrors) we all went to Blockbuster to rent movies... But today we can access almost all of our entertainment right over the Internet from the comfort of our sofa (except for those brave few who still trudge out to a red box).

From there Porway went on to discuss how data scientists working in small teams can make a world of difference by using their analytical skills to change the world for the better. Porway challenged the audience by asking us "Have you thought about how you might use data to change the world for the better?" And then he went on to describe how data can be instrumental in helping to solve world problems like improving the quality of drinking water, reducing poverty and improving education.

Indeed, Porway said that he views data scientists as "today's superheroes."

Porway the introduced Robert LeBlanc, IBM Sr. Vice President for Middleware Software. LeBlanc's primary message was about the four technologies that define the smarter enterprise: cloud, mobile, social and Big Data analytics.

LeBlanc stated that the amount of unstructured data has changed the way we think, work, and live. And he summed it up rather succinctly by remarking that we used to be valuable for what we know, but now we are more valuable for what we share.

Some of IBM's customers, including representatives from Nationwide and Centerpoint Energy took the stage to explain how they had transformed their business using IBM Big Data and analytics solutions.

I think the quote that summed up the general session for me was that only 1 in 5 organizations spend more than 50 percent of their IT budget on new projects. With analytics, perhaps that can change!

The next couple of sessions I attended covered the new features of DB2 11 for z/OS, which most of you know was released by IBM for GA on October 25, 2013. I've written about DB2 11 on this blog before, so I won't really go over a lot of those sessions here. Suffice it to say, IBM has delivered some great new features and functionality in this next new release of DB2, and they are already starting to plan for the next one!

I ended the day at the System z Rocks the Mainframe event hosted by IBM at the House of Blues. A good time was had by one and all there as the band rocked the house, some brave attendees jumped up on stage to sing with the band, and the open bar kept everyone happy and well lubricated... until we have to get up early tomorrow for Day Two of IOD...

See you tomorrow!


P.S. And for those interested, Adam Gartenberg has documented the IBM announcements from day one of IOD on his blog here.

Information on Demand 2013

Just a short blog today to promote the upcoming IBM Information on Demand conference. This is one of the biggest data-focused conferences of the year - certainly the biggest for users of IBM data management technology. Last year, over 10,000 folks attended the show and expect for that number to grow this year.

The theme of the event is "Big Data. Unique perspectives." so you can expect some timely information from IBM on their Big Data and analytics offerings. And as those of you who are mainframe DB2 users know, IBM launched a new version of DB2 for z/OS - Version 11 - just last week. So there should be a lot of good new information about the latest and greatest version of DB2.

The event is composed of four forums focusing on 1) business analytics, 2) information management, 3) enterprise content management, and 4) business leadership.

I'm looking forward to attending the conference - as well as delivering a presentation on Wednesday, November 6th titled Understanding the rolling four hour average to control DB2 costs.

If you're not planning on being there, you should reconsider! And if you are planning on being there, hunt me down and say "Hi!"

Here is the web page for more information on the Information on Demand 2013 conference.