Mohammad Darab

I decided to start a series of blogs where I interview key people in the SQL Server community. Instead of me asking technical questions, I plan on asking about their outlook on the future, books they read (non-fiction and/or technical),  and their overall thoughts on where technology (mainly SQL Server) is headed. You can find more interviews here.

Next up: Pedro Lopes (b | t): 

Mohammad: Do you think people who dismiss the cloud as a “fad” or just don’t take it serious enough to learn about it (i.e. Azure, AWS, etc), will be in a tough spot to find a job 5 years from now?

Pedro: Definitely will – the cloud is here to stay. PaaS and SaaS models add a lot of flexibility to business and operations, and the elasticity to adjust to volatile workloads is unparalleled in cloud as compared to an on-premise data center. The 1st wave is non-critical workloads moving to the cloud, but we are already seeing trends of customers wanting to use Azure for critical workloads, namely now that cloud vendors (namely Azure) are compliant with more security certifications. Azure Managed Instance is also step in this direction, allowing a database layer of an app to just lift and shift to Azure maintaining the concept and manageability of a SQL Server instance. Continue reading “Interview – Pedro Lopes”

I decided to start a series of blogs where I interview key people in the SQL Server community. Instead of me asking technical questions, I plan on asking about their outlook on the future, books they read (non-fiction and/or technical),  and their overall thoughts on where technology (mainly SQL Server) is headed. You can find more interviews here.

Next up: Tim Mitchell (b | t):

Mohammad: Where do you see SQL Server technology evolving to 5 years from now? More cloud focused?

Tim: The data world is certainly going to be more cloud-focused, and that doesn’t just apply to SQL Server. The value proposition of using cloud services – time to market, scalability, cost – is clear, and I see more and more of my clients moving at least part of their data workloads to the cloud. The future of data processing and storage is in hybrid solutions (cloud + on prem), and the successful data professional will learn how to fluently speak hybrid. Continue reading “Interview – Tim Mitchell”

I decided to start a series of blogs where I interview key people in the SQL Server community. Instead of me asking technical questions, I plan on asking about their outlook on the future, books they read (non-fiction and/or technical),  and their overall thoughts on where technology (mainly SQL Server) is headed. You can find more interviews here.

Next up: Kevin Kline (b | t):

Mohammad: Where do you see SQL Server technology evolving to 5 years from now? More cloud focused?

Kevin: A few distinct but interrelated evolutions are occurring simultaneously. First, Microsoft now cares most about owning the enterprise data center no matter whose technology was originally in there. So you’re going to see a lot more support from Microsoft in the area of open-source technologies that were previously anathema. You’ve already seen SQL Server on Linux, but why stop there? There’s considerable mindshare behind PostgreSQL, MySQL, etc. Microsoft wants to serve its customers on all of those platforms. Second, cloud is indisputably a “thing” to be reckoned with. If you’re a SQL Server DBA and you’re not catching up on cloud technologies, then you’re definitely falling behind. And don’t forget, in the cloud, poorly performing SQL code and applications cost the company money. So you’d be well served to start learning as much as you can about tuning SQL Servers. Third, the data science disciplines are a “thing” as well. Microsoft is building out these offerings as an adjuct to SQL Server with each new release and sometimes without a new release. One of the great things about the cloud is that it reduces the need for old fashioned skills of DBAs of the 1990’s. If you switch your energies from maintaining those skills into learning a bit more about ML and data science algorithms, you’ll be much more valuable to the business where you’re employed. Finally, the pace of innovation will continue to accelerate. Microsoft has truly mastered a new paradigm of software development. That means new features and capabilities will continue to roll out with regularity. As a person who’s tried hard to keep up the pace, I find it a struggle. For me, this has two implications: A) You’d best specialize so that you don’t go crazy with all of the new things to learn, and B) if you aren’t at least studying a little bit every day, you’re probably complacently settling for obsolescence. Continue reading “Interview – Kevin Kline”

I decided to start a series of blogs where I interview key people in the SQL Server community. Instead of me asking technical questions, I plan on asking about their outlook on the future, books they read (non-fiction and/or technical),  and their overall thoughts on where technology (mainly SQL Server) is headed. You can find more interviews here.

Next up: Argenis Fernandez (b | t):

Mohammad: Where do you see SQL Server technology evolving to 5 years from now? More cloud focused?

Argenis: I see SQL Server continuing to gain ground and becoming even more prevalent than it is today. SQL Server on Linux will be HUGE. It already is with more than 1M Docker repo pulls. Continue reading “Interview – Argenis Fernandez”

I decided to start a series of blogs where I interview key people in the SQL Server community. Instead of me asking technical questions, I plan on asking about their outlook on the future, books they read (non-fiction and/or technical),  and their overall thoughts on where technology (mainly SQL Server) is headed. You can find more interviews here.

Next up: Denny Cherry (b | t):

Mohammad: Where do you see SQL Server technology evolving to 5 years from now? More cloud focused?

Denny: For a lot of people things are definitely going to be more cloud focused. Some companies will stay on-premises for a variety of reasons, but for a lot of people moving to the cloud is going to become a reality. The cloud isn’t that scary. It’s a little different, but that’s about it. Looking at Azure SQL DB, it’s basically just SQL Server. It does most of what normal SQL Server does, it runs queries, etc. There’s just less patching and day to day management that needs to be done because Microsoft is taking care of that for you. Continue reading “Interview – Denny Cherry”

I decided to start a series of blogs where I interview key people in the SQL Server community. Instead of me asking technical questions, I plan on asking about their outlook on the future, books they read (non-fiction and/or technical),  and their overall thoughts on where technology (mainly SQL Server) is headed. You can find more interviews here.

Next up: Benjamin Nevarez (b | t):

Mohammad: Where do you see SQL Server technology evolving to 5 years from now? More cloud focused?

Benjamin: Well, I really don’t see many big changes in five years, it is a very short time. As an example we can look back a few years ago when SQL Server in-memory technologies like Hekaton and columnstore indexes were originally released. We were very excited about these technologies but later realized that they were initially released with serious limitations leaving us to wait for them to mature and become widely adopted. So I hope a wide adoption of these technologies, especially Hekaton, in the next few years. Continue reading “Interview – Benjamin Nevarez”

I decided to start a series of blogs where I interview key people in the SQL Server community. Instead of me asking technical questions, I plan on asking about their outlook on the future, books they read (non-fiction and/or technical),  and their overall thoughts on where technology (mainly SQL Server) is headed. You can find more interviews here.

Next up: Mindy Curnutt (b | t):

Mohammad: Where do you see SQL Server technology evolving to 5 years from now? More cloud focused?

Mindy: While a lot has changed in the Microsoft Data Platform in the last 5 years, the customers I work with have not changed nearly as quickly, and I really don’t see that pattern changing much over the NEXT 5 years. To be clear, I work mostly with the transportation and logistics industry Continue reading “Interview – Mindy Curnutt”

I decided to start a series of blogs where I interview key people in the SQL Server community. Instead of me asking technical questions, I plan on asking about their outlook on the future, books they read (non-fiction and/or technical),  and their overall thoughts on where technology (mainly SQL Server) is headed. You can find more interviews here.

Next up: Allan Hirt (b | t):

Mohammad: Where do you see SQL Server technology evolving to 5 years from now? More cloud focused?

Allan: I dislike the word “cloud” on its own, similar to how I feel about inaccurately using the word “cluster.” Are we talking about the WSFC or Pacemaker? An FCI? An AG? All of it? Something else? Continue reading “Interview – Allan Hirt”

I decided to start a series of blogs where I interview key people in the SQL Server community. Instead of me asking technical questions, I plan on asking about their outlook on the future, books they read (non-fiction and/or technical),  and their overall thoughts on where technology (mainly SQL Server) is headed. You can find more interviews here.

Next up: Erin Stellao (b | t):

Mohammad: Where do you see SQL Server technology evolving to 5 years from now? More cloud focused?

Erin: Let me state that I don’t think 5 years ahead in my own life, so trying to predict changes in technology really isn’t in my comfort zone. That said, it’s 2017 and there are still a large number of companies running SQL Server 2008 and 2008R2 in production. Therefore, in 2022 I think that companies will still be running SQL Server 2014 and maybe even SQL Server 2012. I expect there will still be a box version of SQL Server that’s current, and people will still be migrating to the cloud. Will there be more solutions in the cloud, compared to on site? That might be too close to call. Continue reading “Interview – Erin Stellato”

I decided to start a series of blogs where I interview key people in the SQL Server community. Instead of me asking technical questions, I plan on asking about their outlook on the future, books they read (non-fiction and/or technical),  and their overall thoughts on where technology (mainly SQL Server) is headed. You can find more interviews here.

Next up: Pinal Dave (b | t):

Mohammad: Where do you see SQL Server technology evolving to 5 years from now? More cloud focused?

Pinal: This is a great question. I personally believe just like any other technology, in premise hosting of SQL Server will remain in place as much as the cloud adoption will grow. I do not see cloud technology replacing in-premises installation in the next 5 years. As a SQL Server Performance Tuning Consultant, I get the opportunity to work with lots of different organizations and I noticed that quite a lot of people still using the old technology as SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005. They are willing to pay a very high amount to tune their server to run faster, rather than migrating to newer versions. May be after 10 years or so we will see strong shift and focus on the cloud. Continue reading “Interview – Pinal Dave”

I decided to start a series of blogs where I interview key people in the SQL Server community. Instead of me asking technical questions, I plan on asking about their outlook on the future, books they read (non-fiction and/or technical),  and their overall thoughts on where technology (mainly SQL Server) is headed. You can find more interviews here.

Next up: Aaron Bertrand (b | t):

Mohammad: Where do you see SQL Server technology evolving to 5 years from now? More cloud focused?

Aaron: I think you will see more cloud adoption. Customers will get over some of their fears and apprehension, and the cloud service providers will find the “sweet spots” for different types of workloads and applications. However, there will always be customers that won’t trust “someone else’s computer,” or can’t – due to various industry or governmental regulations. Aside from cloud, I think with the evolution of SQL Server on Linux and Visual Studio on Mac, we’re seeing a more imaginative Microsoft that might have a few surprises for us yet. Continue reading “Interview – Aaron Bertrand”

I decided to start a series of blogs where I interview key people in the SQL Server community. Instead of me asking technical questions, I plan on asking about their outlook on the future, books they read (non-fiction and/or technical),  and their overall thoughts on where technology (mainly SQL Server) is headed. You can find more interviews here.

Next up: Paul Randal (b | t):

Mohammad: Where do you see SQL Server technology evolving to 5 years from now? More cloud focused?

Paul: I definitely think that cloud is going to become much more prevalent as a platform and the pace of moment into the cloud will increase. I also hope to see more progress on the ability to work with databases in the 10s to 100s of terabytes – loading, querying, visualizing, and of course HA/DR solutions and backups. I don’t think the SQL Server team can abnegate their responsibility to improve things here – whether that’s in the cloud or the on-premises product. Continue reading “Interview – Paul Randal”