Exploring What a PhD Is Like

Some weeks ago, it was my pleasure, and honour, to be invited to participate as a panellist in the online event Explore What a PhD is Like organised by PhD Social Support Network from Loughborough University. The event aimed to give undergraduate and postgraduate students a summary of Doctoral Researchers’ lives and an idea of what it’s like to do a PhD at Loughborough University.

With so much confusing and contradictory information out there, it becomes a bit difficult to have a good understanding of many things before embarking on doing a PhD. So I decided to write down my answers for those of you who could not attend the event and are interested in doing a PhD. Because we were four panellists, I just answered some questions, but in this post, I share my answers to all questions, which mainly depend on my personal circumstances and experiences at Loughborough University — And I do hope to help clear some things up. In case that you have any other questions, please let me know in the comment section.

Don't Place the Blame on SQL Server

I have never worked for Microsoft, but SQL Server has given me a lot in terms of learning, community and opportunities, all these together have helped me do a great job as a Database Administrator (DBA) for many years. Since I started working with SQL Server nearly 15 years ago, I have heard a lot of complaints about SQL Server being nowhere near as good as Oracle. Much as I would have liked to ignore these fruitless discussions, I couldn't see the point of comparing products in such a compulsive way. Is it not true that our skills are more crucial than the technology itself? — Or perhaps some people just try to find something to blame. Whatever the case, I am convinced that we, as database professionals, are compelled to make the most out of any specific database technology. 

No matter what technology we are working with, we are at the wheel — technology is just a tool — so it is not the best to blame technology on the ground of one's inefficiency.

Cryptography is Everywhere

Historically, cryptography was used for secret communication by exclusive sectors only — such as governments, military and spies — since it was crucial and affordable to them. They have long been aware of the consequences of their messages falling into the wrong hands; therefore, this situation has motivated the development of techniques for disguising a message so that only the intended recipient can read it. 

The huge desire for secrecy led nations, kings, and queens to make all-out efforts to ensure the security of communications by inventing the best possible secret codes and ciphers. 

A lover in Victorian times

As the public also became aware of the need to protect personal messages of a highly sensitive nature, they also became comfortable with encipherment. They began to express their cryptographic skills in a variety of ways — for example, young lovers in Victorian England were often forbidden from publicly expressing their affection, and could not even communicate by letter in case their parents intercepted and read the contents. This resulted in lovers sending encrypted messages to each other via the personal columns of newspapers, more specifically, via the classified ads. 

Do You Want to Be a Cryptographer?

Alan Turing

I've always been interested in information security since 2003, but it wasn't until I enrolled on the cryptography module — while studying for a Master in Advanced Computer Science in England in 2018— that I started getting more keen on the mathematical side of cryptography; perhaps it was in part because I cherish mathematics and had the right cryptography teacher. What's more, I admire Alan Turing since he strove to do good work in difficult conditions during World War II; his work saved millions of lives. All of these things together inspired me to immerse myself in the world of cryptography. 

Installing a stand-alone SQL Server 2017 instance step by step

Undoubtedly, many of us have the task of installing a new stand-alone SQL Server instance which includes the database engine service only. For instance, it can primarily be needed for dedicated and consolidated OLTP environments. Consequently, we can be asked to create a formal document for others so that they can easily follow it for future installations and standard configurations.

Today's post is going to outline the process of installing a basic stand-alone SQL Server 2017 instance. This process is just a basic guideline and, surely, not a rule for each installation, because it is fully understood that every environment is different and needs a customised installation to meet very specific requirements. You can read the whole tip about it at mssqltips here https://www.mssqltips.com/sqlservertip/5616/steps-to-install-a-standalone-sql-server-2017-instance. I hope you find it very useful and practical. That's all for now. Please let me know any remarks you may have. Stay tuned!

Configuring Read-Only Routing and load-balancing across Read-Only replicas

With the arrival of AlwaysOn Availability Group in SQL Server 2012, implementing HA+DR solutions have been an easier and not expensive task in comparison to legacy architectures such as Database Mirroring for HA and Log Shipping for DR, and FCI for HA and Database Mirroring for DR. Nevertheless, at the beginning not everyone has been fully aware of all the power of this technology so that some might not have made the most out of it. Naturally, this technology has been improved over the years, for instance, load-balancing across readable secondary replicas was added, and today in this post, I am coming with a script to configure it.

Quickly Checking for Stale Statistics in SQL Server

Monitoring the state of database statistics is crucial because they significantly influence overall performance. When statistics become outdated, performance degradation is inevitable, often leading to slow and inefficient systems—something nobody wants. This raises several important questions:

• How often have you faced unforeseen performance issues, even after completing your regular database maintenance tasks?
• Have you wondered why tasks like index rebuilding and statistics updates are sometimes insufficient?
• If everything was running smoothly before, why has performance suddenly declined?
• Why are indexes not being utilised as expected? Should more indexes be created?

The answer to many of these questions often lies in stale statistics. It's essential to remember that statistics contain vital information that the SQL Optimiser uses to generate optimal execution plans for queries. If these statistics are outdated, the impact on performance can be severe. Simply having the right indexes isn’t enough if the statistics are stale.

Avoid changing default ANSI database options

Not having another way of fixing some specific errors, at times some people may consider turning off any ANSI database options as a final solution. To be perfectly honest, I do recommend getting to the bottom of each problem and then fixing it at that level instead of changing default ANSI settings (unless it is just a quick fix or is truly necessary because you verified the benefits are significant). For instance, it is by no means uncommon to turn ANSI_WARRINGS off to fix the following error:

Msg 8152, Level 16, State 14, Line 5
String or binary data would be truncated.