The 101st addition to the SQL monthly blog party is being hosted by Jens Vestergaard (b/t). For the topic this month, Jens has asked which tools are essential to our daily job. Or rather, which tools do I depend on as a DBA.

Interesting Topic

I would love to say I noticed the invitation last week and had an idea already in place. I would like to say that, but  I would be lying. In a moment of serendipity,.I’m testing my individual DR solution today How effectively can I work from a borrowed workstation. You’re probably sitting there thinking, “Wow, someone out there actually tests how to work from a borrowed machine? That’s hard core!”. While, I would suggest asking yourself what would you do if your main workstation become unavailable while you’re on call and have a plan in place, this isn’t that. I simply was to preoccupied this morning to realize I had forgotten my laptop bag.

So today, I’m thinking about how much I miss my work environment Things like:

• NotePad++ that I use as a text editor and scratch paper.
• My local script repo
• Reference docs/ebooks I keep on the hard drive
• SQL prompt
• SQL Search

I also miss how I have various apps configured for my personal preference. But I’m also thankful that I have cloud tools like OneNote and LastPass that make this more bearable. Signing into Mozilla got me access to my bookmarks.

What this is teaching me

I am quickly realizing having my documentation/ebooks and scripts available in some kind of repository would be greatly beneficial (Why yes, I am embarrassed I haven’t put those scripts in a repository). It is also making me realize how dependent I am on a laptop that could fail or be stolen, and just how disruptive it is. So I will be working on a plan to resolve that.