Read the original article at A CTO Must Never Do This…

A couple years back I was contacted to look at a very strange problem.

The firm ran flash sales. An email goes out at noon, the website traffic explodes for a couple of hours, then settles back down to a trickle.

Of course you might imagine where this is going. During that peak, the MySQL database was brought to its knees. I was asked to do analysis during this peak load, and identify and fix problems. Make it go faster, please!

First day on the job I’m working with a team of outsourced DBAs. I was also working with a sort of swat team chatting on SKYPE, while monitoring the systems closely.

…

Read the original article at The Art of Resistance

Sometimes, you have to be the bad guy. Be resistant to change. Here’s a story about how stubbornness pays off. As we’ve written about before A 4 letter word divides Dev & Ops.

I had one experience working as the primary MySQL DBA for an internet startup. Turns out they had Oracle for some applications too. And another DBA just to handle the Oracle stuff.

So it came time for Oracle guy to go on vacation. Suddenly these Oracle systems landed on my shoulders. We reviewed everything in advance, then he bid his goodbyes.

Almost as soon as he was out the door I …

Read the original article at What Recession? – New York Tech Hiring Frenzy

According to Crains, New York is digital jobs central.  ZocDoc, Thrillist, Foursquare and 10gen are just a few of the hot shots located at 568 Broadway, a tech hub in Soho.  Each of these firms is looking to double their headcount in the coming year.  Not bad considering the rough shape much of the economy is in.

Don’t Forget the Big Boys

Let’s not forget the huge tech firms that are also on a hiring binge,  Google, Facebook, Zynga, Twitter & Skype are all hiring.  Bloomberg Businessweek describes it literally as …

Read the original article at Best of Guide – Highlights of Our Popular Content

We cherry pick the top 5 most popular posts of various topics we’ve covered in recent months.

• 5 Things Toxic to Scalability

We use a broad brush to highlight the biggest no-nos in web application scalability.

We dig into scalability, steering to the richest areas to focus on.

MySQL on Amazon EC2, the what, how …

Read the original article at Consulting essentials: Building your business

In the last two posts on how to build a successful consulting business I shared advice and tips on closing deals and managing and completing your engagements.

This post will look at where to focus your efforts in order to sustain your consulting business, and build skills.

Focus on your subject matter expertise

Being a subject matter expert takes years of education, and professional experience to build. It’s your most valuable asset. Build it, and use it. This is not to say there isn’t great value in …

Read the original article at Consulting essentials: Managing & Completing Engagements

This is the second in a series of three articles on Consulting Essentials.
Read the previous post, Consulting essentials: Getting the business

Communicating well and knowing when to step in or stand back is the linchpin of successful consulting.
Some people have natural charm. If you’re one of these people you’ll find consulting is definitely for you. You’ll use that skill all the time as each new client brings a half dozen or a dozen new people to interact with.

If it doesn’t come easily, practice practice practice. Try to get out of your own head space, and hear what troubles …

Read the original article at Top MySQL DBA interview questions (Part 2)

Continuing from our Top MySQL DBA interview questions (Part 1) here are five more questions that test a MySQL DBA’s knowledge, with two that will help suss out some personality traits.

1. Disk I/O

Disk performance should be an ever present concern to a DBA.  So although they don’t need to be a storage specialist, they should have a working knowledge.  Ask them about RAID versions, mirroring versus striping, and so forth.  Mirroring combines two disks as a unit.  Every write is duplicated on both disks.  If you lose one disk, you have an immediate copy.  Like a tandem truck that has spare tires running …

Read the original article at Top MySQL DBA interview questions (Part 1)

MySQL DBAs are in greater demand now than they’ve ever been. While some firms are losing the fight for talent, promising startups with a progressive bent are getting first dibs with the best applicants. Whatever the case, interviewing for a MySQL DBA is a skill in itself so I thought I’d share a guide of top MySQL DBA interview questions to help with your screening process.
It’s long and detailed with some background to give context so I will be publishing this in two parts.

The history of the DBA as a career

In the Oracle world of enterprise applications, the DBA has long been a strong career path. …

Read the original article at The Problem with Startup Bootcamps

Scanning Crains NY Business recently, I saw an article on 'starting up' in 54 hours.  It's the brainchild of Marc Nager, Clint Nelsen and Franck Nouyrigat called Startup Weekend. Startup bootcamps seem to be the current extra-curricular activity of choice these days. Wharton is also getting in on it with their Innovation Tournament. Then there is the …

Read the original article at The Mythical MySQL DBA

I’ve  been getting more than my fair share of calls from recruiters of late. Even in this depressed economic climate where jobs are rarer than a cab at rush-hour, it’s heartening to know that tech engineers are in great demand. And it’s even more heartening to think that demand for MySQL DBAs has never been better.

My reckoning was confirmed by a Bloomberg news report about stalwart retailers suffering from a dearth of talented engineers. Bloomberg cited Target’s outage-prone e-commerce site as a symptom of, among other things the market’s shortage. One of the challenges old-timers like Target face is having to compete with Silicon Valley startups as a …