Tag Archive: Microsoft


Position Responsibilities

Provides DBA services for Production, test, and development databases
Administers and maintains the production, test, and development databases.
Performs SQL code releases
Reviews application designs for compliance with production acceptance requirements.
Complies with IT policies and procedures, especially those for quality and productivity standards
Complies with Information Security policies and procedures. Verifies deliverables meet Information Security requirements.
Participates in special projects and performs other related duties as assigned.
Operations are 24 x 7. May be required to be on call, work beyond normal business hours

Position Requirements

B.S. in computer science
2 to 3 years experience
Strong written and oral communication skills.
Strong analysis and problem solving skills.
Working knowledge of the following DBA practices and concepts: database backup & recovery, database performance & tuning, database monitoring, and maintenance.
Working knowledge of Visual Source Safe
Strong knowledge of database design and administration
Stored procedure and view development and troubleshooting
Database size management (includes volume/disk mgmt., file and filegroup allocations.)
Basic understanding of Microsoft Clustering technology
Proficient with Microsoft Office Suite
Entry level knowledge of networking
Entry level skill set of database performance tuning/indexing
SSRS, SSIS, and scripting experience a plus.

Interested? (say I referred you on the application form)

Assuming that you installed Sybase OpenClient 15.5 from the 15.5 PC Client:

Install ActiveState Perl from http://www.activestate.com (free) and install DBI if it isn’t already installed.  It should be but you never know…

  1. Start -> ActiveState Perl -> Perl Package Manager
  2. install DBI
  3. exit

Now, the easy part.  Install the DBD::Sybase 1.09.01 PPM:

  1. download DBD::Sybase 1.09.01 PPM
  2. extract zip file to temporary directory (e.g. c:\test)
  3. Start -> Run -> cmd.exe (as Administrator if Vista or Windows 7)
  4. cd \test
  5. ppm install DBD-Sybase.ppd
  6. exit

That’s it :)

It should automatically install the DBD::Sybase for Perl 5.8 or 5.10 depending on which version of Active State Perl you have installed.

Assuming that you installed Sybase OpenClient 15.5 from the 15.5 PC Client:

Install ActiveState Perl from http://www.activestate.com (free) and install DBI if it isn’t already installed.  It should be but you never know…

  1. Start -> ActiveState Perl -> Perl Package Manager
  2. install DBI
  3. exit

Now, the easy part.  Install the DBD::Sybase 1.09 PPM:

  1. download DBD::Sybase 1.09 PPM
  2. extract zip file to temporary directory (e.g. c:\test)
  3. Start -> Run -> cmd.exe (as Administrator if Vista or Windows 7)
  4. cd \test
  5. ppm install DBD-Sybase.ppd
  6. exit

That’s it :)

Sybase

I was very much surprised just how easy it is to convert a Microsoft Windows 7 laptop into a virtual machine running within Sun’s VirtualBox.  This is what I did:

  • Pull the hard drive from the laptop.  On my Dell Latitude, it was simply unscrewing the two screws on the bottom of the laptop marked with the hard drive simble
  • Attach the drive to a SATA to USB connector and plug it in to your Linux box
  • If you don’t have VirtualBox installed, do so now using apt-get, rpm, or whatever you use to install software
  • Follow How to migrate existing Windows installations to VirtualBox but make sure you specify the entire drive (i.e. /dev/sdh) and not individual partitions else you will miss the hidden partitions that Vista and Windows 7 create

You should have a working Windows 7 Virtual Machine.  You’ll notice that you probably have a huge vdi file.  Let’s shrink that down:

  • Within Windows
    • download and install sdelete from Microsoft
    • download and install PowerDefragmenter
    • Run PowerDefragmenter on your c: drive (as administrator)
    • Run “sdelete -c c:” from a cmd window (as administrator)
    • shutdown windows
  • On the host
    • run “VBoxManage modifyvdi my_disk.vdi compact” replacing “my_disk.vdi” with the name of your vdi file you created earlier
    • Note that if you get a “Shrink hard disk operation is not implemented” error, then you’ve hit bug #2833 and you will want to download the latest VirtualBox to fix it.

The following is MY perception of Sybase’s PowerBuilder:

Years ago PowerBuilder was king.  No one could touch it.  It was relatively inexpensive.  Microsoft’s Visual Basic matured and the Pascal based Borland’s Delphi was released.  Then it fell and fall it did.

Sybase

Sybase

As it was falling from the throne Sybase purchased Powersoft, makers of PowerBuilder.  As the the market share continued to shrink, PowerBuilder developers had more difficulty in finding new projects.  Most new development was written in Visual Basic or Java.

Years went by with marketing of PowerBuilder little more than the occasional road show, TechWave presentations and the ISUG Technical Journal ads catered towards existing customers.  Little to no effort was put forth by Sybase to gain new PowerBuilder customers.

During this week’s Sybase TechWave, PowerBuilder version 12 was released.  It has all the whistles and kitchen sinks you could ask for.   An amazing tool for development!  Too bad no one outside of the die hard PowerBuilder programmers will use it.

Blasphemy!  Heretic!

Consider this:

Sybase owns PowerBuilder.  It owns the PowerBuilder software, PowerBuilder language, PowerScript, the PowerBuilder vm, and everything PowerBuilder.

No problem right?

What will happen to PowerBuilder when Sybase is bought out by another company?  Products with tiny market share like PowerBuilder would likely be killed or in a state of limbo for several years.  Anyone remember what happened when IBM bought Informix?

Do you really want to bet your career and business on a software development tool that is locked to a single smallish vendor?

Maybe, perhaps, if Sybase were to release the PowerBuilder 4GL language and PowerScript to the world like Microsoft did with the C# and Visual Basic languages and Sun with Java…   Perhaps if Sybase would allow 3rd parties to develop tools based around the PowerBuilder language royalty free…

Sybase:  PLEASE FREE THE POWERBUILDER 4GL LANGUAGE!

I mean, really, what benefit could Sybase have to cripple the PowerBuilder developers?