Friday, February 1, 2008
MySQL Friday
Each month we have an IT All-Hands meeting.
Last month I was promoted to Senior Vice President (SVP), because of my superior management techniques.
Today I was promoted to CEO! Unfortunately it only lasted for a few minutes. I happen to resemble our new CEO (and I'm always pining for a promotion) and they thought it would be funny (again) to bring me up.
I hugged the guy behind me, shook hands with people next to me and ran up to the front. I wanted to shriek, like the people do on The Price is Right, but I didn't have it in me. You gotta have fun at work right?
Well, after that it got serious. Our new Director (at WellCare, Directors are executives, one step up from managers and one below VPs) who heads our architecture team (and release management) got up to discuss where he would be taking us.
Slide one:
From 3 database engines to 1.
From 4 programming languages to 2.
From 3 OSs to 1.
Wanna guess what question I had?
"So, what database engine are we going to use?"
I knew the answer, but I take every single opportunity I get to make my point.
"MySQL."
Being on the datawarehouse team, I was confident that Oracle was not going away.
He went on to explain:
"Legacy applications would be maintained but everything going forward would be done in MySQL."
A flurry of questions came from the crowd so I was unable to followup immediately. I could feel the room come alive...it was weird (I think I'm still hopped up from the events that took place today).
Our CIO asked if there were any more questions or comments.
I spoke up.
I have two points.
1. If it's about cost, move all of the one-off applications into just a few Oracle instances. From what I can tell, we have somewhere in the neighborhood of 100. Let's say 5 databases, datawarehouse, our production OLTP and one for others. All you need to do is assign them different schemas, voila! Cost is much lower and there is a very big chance to reuse code.
2. Actually, I can't remember what my other point was. I think it had something to do with putting the logic in the database, that Java was the fad a few years ago, Ruby was the big thing now, what would it be in 5 years? Will we have to rewrite all of the logic then? (I guess I do sorta remember).
After that, someone asked about the two programming languages. Not a great answer from the crowd's reaction. Then someone asked about the OS.
The crowd was riotous (if that's a word). The CIO had to calm us all down.
I made a remark that he hadn't danced yet (one of our former hazing techniques for new employees) because I didn't want it to be completely personal, or just to ease something that I started.
After the meeting, I spoke with the Director. Oracle will be gone in 20 years because of the open source databases, it's being commoditized (not sure what that means). SOA is the wave of the future.
It was a polite conversation. I told him I look forward to learning from him but that I will probably never be sold on that idea. Fewer moving parts, simplicity, that's what I want.
I then spoke with the CIO, told him that once the decision was made, I would support it and keep my mouth shut (or find a new job).
I sent an email to the VP of the Director's group (after a couple of beers...idiot!) explaining my rationale.
One of the biggest reasons we chose to come to Tampa, to WellCare specifically, was because it was so young and immature. I would have the opportunity, if I could prove myself, to shape the future of IT here.
It's nice to have a voice.
Anyway, it's Friday, I'm prepped to spend all weekend at work to get this project delivered that was due in November. Have a good weekend!
Last month I was promoted to Senior Vice President (SVP), because of my superior management techniques.
Today I was promoted to CEO! Unfortunately it only lasted for a few minutes. I happen to resemble our new CEO (and I'm always pining for a promotion) and they thought it would be funny (again) to bring me up.
I hugged the guy behind me, shook hands with people next to me and ran up to the front. I wanted to shriek, like the people do on The Price is Right, but I didn't have it in me. You gotta have fun at work right?
Well, after that it got serious. Our new Director (at WellCare, Directors are executives, one step up from managers and one below VPs) who heads our architecture team (and release management) got up to discuss where he would be taking us.
Slide one:
From 3 database engines to 1.
From 4 programming languages to 2.
From 3 OSs to 1.
Wanna guess what question I had?
"So, what database engine are we going to use?"
I knew the answer, but I take every single opportunity I get to make my point.
"MySQL."
Being on the datawarehouse team, I was confident that Oracle was not going away.
He went on to explain:
"Legacy applications would be maintained but everything going forward would be done in MySQL."
A flurry of questions came from the crowd so I was unable to followup immediately. I could feel the room come alive...it was weird (I think I'm still hopped up from the events that took place today).
Our CIO asked if there were any more questions or comments.
I spoke up.
I have two points.
1. If it's about cost, move all of the one-off applications into just a few Oracle instances. From what I can tell, we have somewhere in the neighborhood of 100. Let's say 5 databases, datawarehouse, our production OLTP and one for others. All you need to do is assign them different schemas, voila! Cost is much lower and there is a very big chance to reuse code.
2. Actually, I can't remember what my other point was. I think it had something to do with putting the logic in the database, that Java was the fad a few years ago, Ruby was the big thing now, what would it be in 5 years? Will we have to rewrite all of the logic then? (I guess I do sorta remember).
After that, someone asked about the two programming languages. Not a great answer from the crowd's reaction. Then someone asked about the OS.
The crowd was riotous (if that's a word). The CIO had to calm us all down.
I made a remark that he hadn't danced yet (one of our former hazing techniques for new employees) because I didn't want it to be completely personal, or just to ease something that I started.
After the meeting, I spoke with the Director. Oracle will be gone in 20 years because of the open source databases, it's being commoditized (not sure what that means). SOA is the wave of the future.
It was a polite conversation. I told him I look forward to learning from him but that I will probably never be sold on that idea. Fewer moving parts, simplicity, that's what I want.
I then spoke with the CIO, told him that once the decision was made, I would support it and keep my mouth shut (or find a new job).
I sent an email to the VP of the Director's group (after a couple of beers...idiot!) explaining my rationale.
One of the biggest reasons we chose to come to Tampa, to WellCare specifically, was because it was so young and immature. I would have the opportunity, if I could prove myself, to shape the future of IT here.
It's nice to have a voice.
Anyway, it's Friday, I'm prepped to spend all weekend at work to get this project delivered that was due in November. Have a good weekend!
Labels: cio, database, funny, mysql, oracle, sql, work
¶ 2/01/2008 10:52:00 PM 2 Comments Links to this post
Monday, November 26, 2007
Oops I've Done it Again
By it, I mean I've sent another rant to my CIO. Here's my first one that I sent to Dratz before starting my own blog.
Fortunately, we've developed a bit of a rapport. I still should not do this type of thing on a holiday when it could be days before I hear back...it just makes my mind wander and wonder if I will have a job come Monday.
I still have a job...I really need to stop this. ¶ 11/26/2007 12:42:00 AM 1 Comments Links to this post
Fortunately, we've developed a bit of a rapport. I still should not do this type of thing on a holiday when it could be days before I hear back...it just makes my mind wander and wonder if I will have a job come Monday.
Update
I still have a job...I really need to stop this. ¶ 11/26/2007 12:42:00 AM 1 Comments Links to this post
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Good Day to Worse Day
Today I got the opportunity to have lunch with my CIO.
A few weeks ago I sent him a manifesto, which I would now classify as more of a philosophy. He kept promising me he would articulate a response via email. Being the CIO of a Fortune 400 company, I figured he had better things to do than to write out an email to me. So I offered him up a trade, lunch in exchange for the email. Surprisingly, he agreed.
Today was the day but I fully expected him to cancel; surely something else would come up. Nothing did, but he did move it back by 15 minutes.
Down to the cafeteria we went (I was really hoping to go out to lunch, just to get a ride in his Porsche Gemballa). We sat in a booth and started talking. We discussed everything from my group (excellent group of people, talented and fun), using MySQL databases for one-off projects (I was for putting them in a single Oracle database), to the state of our current OLTP application (crud).
He mentioned user-defined fields (OLTP) and I told him about one instance where someone in our company created those in an internal application. I didn't say anything at the time because it was not in my group and I didn't want to call someone out for something I thought was wrong. He told me I should have, that it would be in the best interests of the company. Then he said something that I have heard him say in our All-Hands meeting, "Let me be the one that makes the wrong decision."
That sealed the deal for me. I have liked him and what he has done since he got here, but that one comment told me that he took his job as leader seriously. I was thoroughly impressed.
So that was the good (great) part of the day. I felt great because our CIO listened to me prattle on for an hour and listened to me. He even used one of my analogies (well, not mine really) in his management meeting a short time later.
Now on to the worse part.
The application I have been working on for the last few months required an Emergency Fix (EFIX) because they had detected a bug. I realized quickly that I was the culprit. Something that had worked previously was changed by me in an effort to re-factor the code. It wasn't broken. There was no specific business requirement to re-factor it, I just did it...and screwed it up. The ironic part is I had just sent out an article to my co-workers about discipline making good developers.
I told this to the Business folks, what I had done; and apparently I hadn't earned any brownie points with them because they escalated it to my boss and VP. Which of course had to go to the CIO as well...
I definitely screwed up. There's no way around that. I know better than that. Oh well. It was certainly a lesson in humility. I'm just thankful I still have a job...
A few weeks ago I sent him a manifesto, which I would now classify as more of a philosophy. He kept promising me he would articulate a response via email. Being the CIO of a Fortune 400 company, I figured he had better things to do than to write out an email to me. So I offered him up a trade, lunch in exchange for the email. Surprisingly, he agreed.
Today was the day but I fully expected him to cancel; surely something else would come up. Nothing did, but he did move it back by 15 minutes.
Down to the cafeteria we went (I was really hoping to go out to lunch, just to get a ride in his Porsche Gemballa). We sat in a booth and started talking. We discussed everything from my group (excellent group of people, talented and fun), using MySQL databases for one-off projects (I was for putting them in a single Oracle database), to the state of our current OLTP application (crud).
He mentioned user-defined fields (OLTP) and I told him about one instance where someone in our company created those in an internal application. I didn't say anything at the time because it was not in my group and I didn't want to call someone out for something I thought was wrong. He told me I should have, that it would be in the best interests of the company. Then he said something that I have heard him say in our All-Hands meeting, "Let me be the one that makes the wrong decision."
That sealed the deal for me. I have liked him and what he has done since he got here, but that one comment told me that he took his job as leader seriously. I was thoroughly impressed.
So that was the good (great) part of the day. I felt great because our CIO listened to me prattle on for an hour and listened to me. He even used one of my analogies (well, not mine really) in his management meeting a short time later.
Now on to the worse part.
The application I have been working on for the last few months required an Emergency Fix (EFIX) because they had detected a bug. I realized quickly that I was the culprit. Something that had worked previously was changed by me in an effort to re-factor the code. It wasn't broken. There was no specific business requirement to re-factor it, I just did it...and screwed it up. The ironic part is I had just sent out an article to my co-workers about discipline making good developers.
I told this to the Business folks, what I had done; and apparently I hadn't earned any brownie points with them because they escalated it to my boss and VP. Which of course had to go to the CIO as well...
I definitely screwed up. There's no way around that. I know better than that. Oh well. It was certainly a lesson in humility. I'm just thankful I still have a job...
Labels: cio, discipline, humility, work
¶ 8/22/2007 09:30:00 PM 4 Comments Links to this post
