What is your best advice for boosting index performance?

As usual, selecting the winning entry was difficult as there were many great tips, but this month’s winner is Robert Miller. Robert has won a US $50.00 Amazon.com gift certificate and a single license (including one year of support and upgrades) for HyperBac for SQL Server, worth US $994.00.

To check out his response, and the responses of the other entries, click here.

Thanks for everyone who participated in this month’s contest, and don’t forget to enter the July Question of the Month.

This month, because of the nature of the question, which has no right or wrong answer, the winner will be selected randomly from all the entries that are received. I have talked to many DBAs over the years, and nobody I have talked to started out their career wanting to be a DBA. They all seemed to have started one career, and then eventually moved into the role as a DBA (part-time or full-time). If you are not a DBA, but would like to be a DBA, you can still enter. Instead of telling us your story of how you became a DBA, tell us why you want to become a DBA.

For more information, click on the Question of the Month tab above.

What is your favorite DBA joke?

If you haven’t read the jokes yet, click on the link above to see what people came up with.

Humor is very subjective, which made it difficult to select a winner. After much deliberation, I have selected Dave Dustin of Auckland, NZ as this month’s winner. Here is his winning entry:

A big party is being held to honor relational database systems and their impact on modern society. Outside the venue, the host awaits the guests.

The first limousine arrives and out steps Oracle followed by 4 people.

Host: Who have you brought along?
Oracle: I have 4 DBA’s in tow. One to install me, one to design the databases, one to administer me, and the other to justify the cost.

A second limo arrives and out steps DB2 followed by 40 people.

Host: Who have you bought along?
DB2: I have 2 DBA’s, 2 hardware specialists, and 36 consultants.

A third limo arrives and out steps SQL Server all on his own.

Host: Why haven’t you brought anyone?
SQL Server: I didn’t bring anyone because I am easy to install and am basically self managing. But I did bring the #sqlhelp Twitter hashtag for when the excrement hits the fan.

20 minutes later, up rushes MySQL, unshaved, hair a mess.

Host: Where have you been MySQL?
MySQL: Sorry, I thought it was February 31st.

Dave has won a US $50.00 Amazon.com gift certificate and a single license for SQL Backup Pro with one year of support and upgrades worth US $994.00.

Thanks to everyone participated in this month’s contest, and don’t forget to enter the June Question of the Month.

I’ll pick the winner that offers what I think is the most original, useful and complete answer to the question. If some of the responses are very similar, then I will select the one that was posted first. The winner will be announced on this page the first week of July. Good luck!

For more information, click on the Question of the Month tab above.

What advice would you offer a novice DBA in order to help them along in their career?

If you haven’t read the responses yet, please do so, as there is a lot to be learned from the advice offered.

Because all of the advice was good, I decided that the main selection criteria for the contest would be originality. From the 28 responses, I felt that three of them included some very valuable and original advice. They included:

Pam Wampler, whose advice included: “First and foremost, remember to breathe! Normally when there is a database “emergency”, you will be the first one with the water hose trying to put out the file. Breathing is a good thing.”

Merrill Aldrich, whose advice included: “I originally went to school and began work as an architect, and one of the most important ideas I took from that experience is that most architects treat their careers as a personal life’s work, in the same way, I’d imagine, that a doctor might. An architect or a doctor does spend his/her life working, but at the same time refining a personal body of skills and knowledge. That set of skills and knowledge has its own life as the person’s practice, independent of any specific job. It travels with the person. You can get fired from your job, but not lose your practice.

This is the difference between “having a practice” and “doing a job.” A practice is part of your identity; your skills are something you refine because you want to get better, not because the boss said you have to go to training. A practice is something you can be passionate about. If you do this right, the passion makes you better, and makes you happier. People notice, and it’ll advance the more mundane parts of your life, like jobs, titles, earnings, and so on.”

Rahul Singla, whose advice included: “And as a DBA, take care that you are not a machine running on a 365×24×7 basis with a 99.995 SLA guaranteed uptime. Enjoy what you are doing, because if you are in it just for a living, you would not be able to sustain it beyond a point. And take time out for your family, for the wonderful people around you, and for nature. Life, after all, is not data, number crunching and weary eyes staring at the monitor in the wrong hours of the night.”

After a lot of thought, I have selected Merrill Aldrich as the winner of the April Question of the Month. Merrill has won a US $50 Amazon.com gift certificate, plus a single license of SQL Prompt. Thanks to everyone who has participated, and don’t forgot to enter the May Question of the Month.

I’ll pick the winner that offers what I think is the most original and funny answer. The winner will be announced on this page the first week of June. Good luck!

For more information, click on the Question of the Month tab above.

What is the biggest mistake/problem you have ever found on a SQL Server instance, and how did you fix it?

If you haven’t read them yet, you need to take the time, as there are many lessons to be learned from all of the people who contributed their stories. Of course, the hard part for me was to select a winner, as there were so many good ones to choose from.

As I read through the responses, multiple times, the responses from the following DBAs particularly caught my attention.

• Peso
• Prometheus_and_Bob
• Robert Davis
• Shawn Johnson

After a lot of thought, I have selected the post by Robert Davis as the winner of the March Question of the Month. Robert has won a US $50 gift certificate from Amazon.com, and a single license to SQL Response. To view Robert’s response, along with the other 24 responses, you can view them here.

If you haven’t already noticed, a new April Question of the Month is now available. So please check it out and respond. If you do, you will not only be able to share your knowledge with other DBAs, but have a chance to win a US $50 Amazon.com gift certificate, plus a single license to SQL Prompt.

I’ll pick the winner that offers what I think is the most original, useful and complete answer to the question. If some of the responses are very similar, then I will select the one that was posted first. The winner will be announced on this page the first week of May. Good luck!

For more information, click on the Question of the Month tab above.