Friday, October 24, 2008

The other big day

I don't have as much to report on the other big day as the end of it wasn't conclusive and since the end run happened after that as I reported in another post, there isn't a point of finality.

More to come as the world turns

Thanks for listening

The ghost in the closet

You ever wonder what debris gets left in a conversation you thought you were a part of but realize that other agenda's are usurping your own.

The vendor that was in town in a previous post is doing an end run on me with an outsourcing push for their application only.

I find myself between don't care and damn you every time I think about it, so this is my venting space.

I hate it when one good idea gets taken as gospel and the perception of those non technology executives leads to well it must be a good solution for everything.

Yet when I had conversations and brought it to the table as my idea, with an intent to ensure that the air was clear, I get the end run.

I am somewhere between no way in hell this will happen and if I fail I must quit.  I just don't get it why we continue to circle around the same topic over and over, how many times do we have to address an issue and be told it is in the closet to find it gets dragged out again, and again, it sounds like an agenda or just a bad idea being used wrongly.

Now let me clarify, this isn't year over year validation or re visiting this issue every few years. This is 3X visiting this issue in 8 months. If it's dead let it lie, if there is an agenda then make it known, I hate the dance as it is disrespectful of my time and energy and disregards all previous work to validate or not a particular issue.  If the answer before wasn't satisfactory then say so and make it known that the issue isn't dead but will be revisited, don't leave everyone feeling that the issue was addressed.

Anyway's, thanks for letting me purge that as I need a release

Thanks for listening

My week in reflection

As I said before I had a big week this week.

One of our primary vendors of software for our Canadian division came in for a relationship meeting, I tied them up for hours reviewing issues that they hadn't closed.

They also Presented some of their new direction, a bit too focused on the potential of a perfect world everyone's linked mind set, but that always strikes me as forgetting the reality of today's world and not everyone gets on the same bandwagon ever.  Otherwise a great concept.

Thanks for listening

Are you a digital native

I was at a Gartner event in may 2008 in central Florida where the term Digital Native was used to refer to the 20 something's that are entering the work force.  Folks older than that like myself were referred to as a digital immigrant.

What do you think of the usage of these terms to describe different age groups in the Internet space?

 

Thanks for listening

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Progress, database from hell or bad technology

I have used in past solutions, IBM DB2, MS SQL, My SQL but using progress as suggested by our partner is turning out to be a nightmare.

It lacks the smarts to even know how to size itself or allow a business to grow without much pain and anguish.

If I get this wrong and you know Progress then please enlightening us, but either the technology is bad or my vendor is, their solution suggests the former.

in all experiences I am NOT the programmer or DBA, I am the mouth piece who has to explain to the people in suits in the corner office why this technology is causing us grief and we need more money.

My most recent project before this was using DB2 as the backend, so that becomes my main point of reference.

My Pain Points are as follows with this environment that we never had to deal with when we used DB2:

1) As I now know that when our vendor setup the database they have to specify a maximum size value, not great because you can't extend the database beyond that size without dumping and reloading the whole thing, Currently I have a 29GB database and that takes so long to update.

2) The database when created is also setup with variables for extents inside the database, the extents are created up to the maximum size specified.  Get too many extents and viola you are at maximum database size, hit the max and your database stops even though you have lots more disk it can use.

3) You need more than programmers to work in the environment, you need programmers who are inherent DBA's.  Great if your used to Oracle where you may have a team of database related skill sets to keep it going along with a massive chequebook to fund the licenses, but with DB2 you can use your programmer to write good code and the database handles so much more for everyone from sysadmin to DBA.

4) Tuning the database is 100% manual, no automated tools built in to assist you. That will cost me another $20K/yr to handle.

5) No tools to assist with and build index's, in DB2 that was very automated and the engine even helped with recommendations based upon constantly accessed pathways.

6) ODBC connectivity - what a shame, only JDBC out of the box and everything is $$$$

In short after some very serious six figure dollars I am disappointed in the enterprise class Progress database.  If you know more than me about this platform, lets talk as right now I love the application in this environment but the technology sucks.

 

Thanks for listening

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