Month: May 2018

T-SQL Tuesday #102 – Giving Back with GTD

Doug

This month’s #tsql2sday is being hosted by Riley Major (b|t). He ask us to “Pick some way you can help our community”. I realized my improvement with time management this year is how I can help the community.

Adapting my time management processes around David Allen’s (b|t) Getting Things Done (GTD) has been very beneficial for me this year. I’ve been a GTD practitioner for a couple of years but lost focus in 2017. When Mala Mahadevan (b|t) ask us to write down our learning goals for 2018 I knew this was the opportunity to reevaluate my GTD process. I believe this is what I can do to help our community, help others with time management. We all are being asked to do more with what seems like less time in the day. How many of you have a hard time keeping track of projects at work and home? GTD is the answer.

I’ve already written about my daily and weekly routines under GTD, but I believe it is time to provide a series of blog posts introducing you to GTD and how to get started. It took me a while to understand how to implement GTD and I hope I can provide you with the steps necessary to get rolling without the bumps that I had. Having the ability to know exactly what to work on without having to worry about all other active projects/tasks is what true time management means to me. This is the place I want to get you to, worry-free time management.

Doug Purnell

A little SQL Curry goes a long way

Doug

We hired a Director of Information Security a while back. One of the things that excited me the most about this new position was the ability to exchange ideas around security under SQL Server. Our initial discussion was over lunch at a local Indian restaurant, Taaza Bistro (w|t), and I found it very beneficial. We talked about our best practices and from that we agreed that there wasn’t any immediate need for us to alter our course (that was good news).

From that initial conversation, we continue to get together at the same restaurant every other month or so to talk about new ideas, active and future projects, or changes in the industry. The nice part about these lunches is the ability to bounce around ideas from a pure security standpoint. I leave each lunch with a better take on how to architect more secure solutions with SQL Server.

Our latest project is using a proxy server for all of our SSIS SFTP transmissions to vendors. The advantage of using proxies is they can lower your risk footprint by not have egress connections directly from your secure network. This allows you to place the proxy box under the DMZ for outbound connections.

The one thing I wanted to relay from this experience is how these lunches can be helpful for other databases administrators. It may not be with your Security Director, but it could be with the service desk, SAN/Domain admins, or any other department in your organization that you don’t normally speak to daily basis. It’s a great way to bounce ideas and understand pain points from other co-workers.

Here’s to plenty more SQL Curry lunches!

Doug Purnell