Hundreds of years ago I was a production Oracle and SQL Server DBA. The Oracle side required less work as that was a pending prod system. I spent the majority of my time doing data conversions from SQL Server and what not. I had a process down that would drop existing objects and then import data and recreate things like views, procedures, etc. It all worked very well and was efficient. Until one day. We had dev, test and prod instances of course and while I thought I was in the dev instance I ran a script that dropped all sequence objects. I ran the script as the Sys user in the Prod instance. Once that happens, you cannot login anymore and this means the instance had to be rebuilt, and it was. If that system were live it would have been a resume generating event. After that I modified glogin to show the instance and user and any time I was going to run a script I logged in to a new connection.
Posts by DBA-ONE
9 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Jun 2013
DBA made ten years of data disappear with one misplaced parameter
Mastermind of Broadcom’s VMware buy is out, CEO Tan to take over software
"Surgically implanting 2 bags of dogshit in a patient will result in zero healthy patients, not a thriving one."
That was funny. And, I agree about the GUI-based vCenter issues. I favored the fat client of the management tool regardless of the reasons VMware gave for killing it. The HTML5 version is often slow and sometimes I have a hard time believing what I'm seeing in it. If you move around too fast it starts to freak out. The only feature I like about the web client is being able to put a task aside if I need to look at something else.
Two clichés, one headline: 'No good deed goes unpunished' and 'It's always DNS'
Re: Life Lesson
Exactly. We have a particular customer that is a bottomless pit of problems. I won't do anything without a ticket. I wouldn't even close a door for them without a ticket. I won't talk to them via phone because that conversation won't match what goes in email. A web server took a dump recently and they had no support for the app from the vendor and it was very old stuff. I figured it out, so now I will be the "expert" in IIS and basically anything referred to by three letters.
A cautionary tale of virtual floppies and all too real credentials
Years ago, I worked with a proprietary insurance claims app that used a file-based database consisting of data (.dat) and index files (.idx). When we would have corruption at a client's site we would make a copy of the data file and rebuild the index. It was common to copy the data file to .bak. One day, a client was running low on space and instead of doing del *.bak I did del *dat. That command ran fast and purged all the data in seconds. That is the worst thing I've done. The second was in a system that was getting close, but not yet in production. As part of a refresh for an Oracle schema I would drop all objects and run my conversion and supplemental scripts. One of these scripts dropped all sequence objects. Well, I was logged in as the sys user, and when you drop these you may as well get ready to reinstall the software because you can no longer log in.
After that, I changed how I connect to any database. For Oracle, I tweak the glogin file to display connection info and if I change user I completely close the session and start a new one. For SQL Server, I never connect even if the last connection prompt is what I want. I close that and select the desired server from the registered server list. This forces me to think about what I'm doing.
Finding remote working a bit of a grind? Microsoft staffers feel your pain
Re: Open plan offices are worse than cubicle farms
Well put. I've had to be around a group that is on the phone all day with clients. Each one talking louder because of all the other people talking around them. I don't want to attend your meeting! We've got one guy who wears noise cancelling headphones and roams around talking loudly as if he is all alone. I've noted that the folks who tend to think an open space is a good idea always have the option to close the door to their office. It just doesn't work.
Of course, it isn't a problem now. I'm one of usually three people who come to the office Monday through Friday. We each pretty much have a floor to ourselves. It was nice at first, but it is now lonely and taking a toll on me. I feel like I've fallen out of touch and isolated. The company really is making an effort to provide good communication, but email and video doesn't replace the in-person contact.
Excel is for amateurs. To properly screw things up, those same amateurs need a copy of Access
I've seen companies trying to get off the ground basically run their business with Access. Usually this involved using a real database such as SQL Server to store the data rather that the corruption prone native DB. I wrote a report scheduling front-end using this formula only because I had doubts about creating a web-based app that functioned correctly within the time constraints. I've seen a lot of the "look what I made" thing with Access and it usually has the same problem - a real application isn't simple to create. There is no error trapping, no validation to keep bad data out. No all or nothing transaction-like deletes for records in multiple tables , etc. The list goes on. I liken it to complex reporting in that many software vendors promise great things with just drag and drop, but this is usually not true. In the end you have to know how to code.
Wannabe Cali governor gives up against beach-blocking billionaire VC
Get a grip
I think the biggest problem most of the commentary have is the of ability to read. The previous owner didn't allow free access, so it was never come and go as you like. Access was granted on what the prior owner saw as demand-based. The road is, and has always been, on private property and controlled.
The beach may be public, but you can't just walk over someone else's property to get to it. California is so fucked up with the sense of entitlement all around. This guy isn't obligated to pay anyone's way across his property. Find your own way.
Buy a boat, prasail, whatever to the beach, but the dude's property is just that. He doesn't owe the slip and fall Nation access on his road just so these people can sue, and that's what they will do.
Gavin is a political whore who knows his limitations for once.
Ed Iacobucci: Brains behind OS/2 and Citrix, nicest guy in tech
Citrix was a very important development.
In the 90's (and for much longer) I worked for a company that sold a fat client based claims processing application. Originally this software was developed for the THEOS OS and we sold a few AIX and SCO ports as well. Clearly those were thin client with THEOS more in the style of an IBM Mainframe. During this time the app was brought over to Windows because that was were our clients were headed. Depending on the size of the organization, rolling out installs and updates could be a really big issue. Enter Citrix. It was fantastic to not have to worry about why something worked fine on this machine but not that or have to deal with issues updating client machines. The published app and printer support made it all that much better. Though Citrix added cost to the application environment those who initially rejected it came around once the benefits became obvious.
Eventually Terminal Server offered proper printer support and that was the single largest factor that caused many of our clients to choose to skip the Citrix layer as early Terminal Server did not support printing. However, not all of the clients went that way with some continuing to use Citrix products. Winframe, Metaframe or by any other name that product made life much easier.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
