Rack'em

What’s Going On? A review of 2015 and forecast for 2016

It’s been quiet… Too quiet

Yes, yes it has.

Things have been quiet here as of late. Posts and podcasts both have been lacking.

I felt it important to share will all of you what has been happening, and what is going to happen in the future with this site, my company WaterOx Consulting, and me.

 

What Happened?

2015 was a year of amazing accomplishments paired with some tough decisions and sacrifices.

This past year saw the brand of WaterOx Consulting grow as I presented at over 12 events, including SQL Saturdays, user groups, virtual chapters, various companies, SQLLive360 in Orlando and the Information Security Summit again, as well as adding the PASS Summit! I also pulled together and ran the inaugural SQL Saturday in Nova Scotia along with continuing to organize the Washington D.C. SQL Saturday. I managed to spread my presentations and SQL Server passion, in person, all the way across the US and even internationally to Canada!

This past year saw the birth of my WOxPod! podcast too. It is a lot of work to pull together, but it is fun and I hope to get a lot more episodes coming out in the near future. It has also helped to spread my brand further than just my local area. It isn’t huge, but it has a small following and I appreciate every one of you that do.

I have continued to gain followers online on Twitter. I am just shy of 1,000 followers! I swear I never, ever, thought the number would get even close to that. Thanks go out to all of you that keep up with me, and also share my information and continue to help my grow the business. Her’es hoping in 2016 I can bury that 1,000 follower mark!

WaterOx took on some new short term clients this year for consulting and some for onsite focused training for their developers. I also took on a new SQL Concierge DBA® service member. I also personally took on a full time position at The Motley Fool as their DBA for at least 6 months. It is letting me get some deeper experience in a few areas I wanted to make stronger, and is helping The Motley Fool become a stronger organization as well. Even though I now work at The Motley Fool, don’t expect any hints and tips on how to invest, nor take anything I say here or on any media as anything more than my own opinions completely detached from The Motley Fool.

I also redesigned the website some, and am continuing to tweak it to make it better all the time. One of the main additions was my sp_WOxCompliant script. This script checks the DOD STIGs for SQL Server and is completely free to use. It is due for an update and some more checks to be added, but we’ll talk about that in a little further down the page.

The addition of the script also resulted in over 300 blog posts being made this year to help make the DOD STIGs understandable for everyone that isn’t keen on all the government jargon.

 

What Didn’t Happen?

I am almost ashamed to say this, but a LOT didn’t happen. Some you may have heard of, and were expecting, others you had no idea about. Here’s a breakdown of those things I think people knew about that I wasn’t able to get done this year.

  1. Email training course on SQL Server security – This is a pet project I wanted, but the FTE job at The Motley Fool robbed me of the time required to get it pulled together before the end of the year. It is still going to happen, and you can still sign up for it at the top of the page, it has just been delayed a while.
  2. Pre-con on SQL Security and performance – This is one of those things that a few folks may have heard about. I am looking to create a 1 day intensive training on how to secure you SQL Server using what is natively available. This is still on the list to do as well, but I am uncertain when it may happen. It may be as early as Baltimore’s SQL Saturday, but no guarantee yet. Join my mail list for the email course, and I’ll let you know when it does happen, as well as where.
  3. Complete sp_WOxCompliant for DOD STIG checks. It is almost done, but there are still a lot of checks to be added. They aren’t all easy, but they are fun to code. Shoot, download the script for free and just use the concepts of how the code is running if you like!

Am I upset. Sure, to a point.Who wouldn’t be?

But at the same time I constantly remind myself that I am the one that is doing this all alone.

I don’t have a team to help with website design, course creation, videos, podcasts, etc.

I do need to eat, sleep and relax on occasion.

 

What Is Going To Happen?

Now for the fun stuff!

I fully plan to get back on track with the weekly STIG posts. I want to get that information out there as I hear people are finding it useful. I am also going to try to stick to my older pattern of posting something specifically related to tech on Wednesdays. This may get easier, and more fun too since I just scored this!

cart-o-servers

What is it you ask? It is part of this setup my wife got me for Christmas.[divider]

That’s 11 Dell PowerEdge 2950 servers. I recevied 12 in total along with a 90TB EMC2 VNXe3300 NAS/SAN.

Here’s how it looks right now when all racked up.

Rack'em[divider]

There are some missing components, but nothing outrageous, and everything is working.

I figure it will be fun to customize this whole setup from painting the racks and bezels, to setting up a cooling system and getting everything up and running. Then I’ll get something like VMWare VSphere running on it and get some real sample / test environments setup to help show what can be done with some serious, but slightly aged, and not super performing hardware. We all know the reality is that a lot of places don’t have the latest and greatest equipment, so let’s learn how to use what we have and get the most out of it together!

Keep an eye on the blog for updates on this project under the blog category of: Rack ‘Em Up!

Beyond the new rack-o-servers I am going to start to focus on getting sp_WOxCompliant done for STIGs and look to add either HIPAA or PCI compliance checks to it next. That will be a huge undertaking, but I think it is worth it to provide the tools to help protect all our data out there.

Another thing I really want to do is to get a training video course or 2 pulled together and self-published. I have done this in the past for LearnNowOnline, but I really want to do one by myself , as WaterOx Consulting, and make it available out there. Right now my debate is between making a course to walk through the upgrade to 2014/2016 process, or one on SQL Server security with a lot of hands on to setup groups, keys, certificates, etc. If you have a preference, let me know in the comments of this post! Don’t worry! I’m still going to get the email course pulled together on SQL Security. If you haven’t already, you can sign up at the top of the page!

 

What about Consulting?

I am still available for consulting on just about anything SQL Server related, but due to the full time commitment I am only available on some evenings and weekends. I fully intend to make it to a variety of SQL Saturdays and conferences in the upcoming year and hope to see you all at them, online on twitter, or listening to my podcast once I get back on schedule!

To all of you I wish a prosperous 2016, and growth for all!

[divider][icon_box icon=”users” title=”Who is Chris Bell?”]

Chris Bell, SQL Server MVP, MCSE & MCITP, is a 20 year veteran of using Microsoft products & SQL Server to create solutions for businesses, organizations and individuals. Chris speaks, blogs, writes articles and makes media of all kinds regarding SQL Server at WaterOxConsulting.com. Chris is also the founder of WaterOx Consulting, Inc. which features SQL Server consulting services, training and the FREE sp_WOxCompliant compliance check script for your SQL Server environment.

Click here to contact Chris or to follow him on twitter. [/icon_box]