Param datatypes with Sql Server Stored Procs

I tried several times to save and post this blog entry earlier today and it would NOT save. I have no idea what is wrong as I tried to email it to myself so I could do it later and I couldn't email it either. I'm thinking there was a bad character in my original text, but I pasted in into (and copied it out of notepad) so...  I'm not sure what is going on.  Sometimes these tools in the 'cloud' seem to be in a 'fog'.

Anyway, what I wanted to say was....
I've been working with stored procs lately in Sql Server.  My stored procs take search parameters that I wanted to be very flexible - strings with wild characters on either end using a LIKE in the SQL.  Originally in my declaration for the parameters I used a char datatype.  What I didn't realize was if the param passed in is shorter than the length you specified, a char datatype will automatically add placeholder characters to fill up the rest of the space. So, if  you declared a char with 9 characters and passed the SP a 3 character string, SQL Server would automatically add 6 more characters to it.  I was then trying to prefix and append the percentage sign (wild character) on either end of my param, but it was getting ignored.

In the end (with the help of my more DB inclined colleague, Karlson) I changed the datatype of my param to varchar and I could happily prefix and append wild characters to it.

Got another interesting business idea over the weekend - it's based on a few assumptions, and it's for the investment/financial industry.  The assumptions are:
- history repeats itself.
- the stock market, like history, is cyclical in nature
- investment funds are just as much marketing as they are statistical science
- people will buy anything that is marketed well, whether it provides them with tangible value or not - (the value of stock is all about perception of value)
The idea is simple - create a fund that is based on the cyclical nature of the stock market.  Predictable things happen when interest rates go up, or when commodities or high.  Convince people that you can harness the 'value' in the history of what happens to the stock market with certain indicators are up, and you'll have a winner fund.

Network isolation

For the second time this week, production has gone down for an extended period of time. This time it was because of this bug introduced by McAffee. It was proliferated through all of our environments (apparently) by SSCM. I'm not sure why we are putting McAffee fixes right into production without testing them in a staging environment first. Seems to me like there is a wrong process there somewhere - Either on our side, McAffee's side, or both.
Before we realized this was a McAffee bug, it seemed that this 'virus' got propagated to production from lower environments. Having the production environment on an isolated network from the rest of our development and test environments would have protected us to some degree from this kind of propagation. I have (officially) suggested this more than once, but resourcing and other priorities have gotten in the way of making it a reality.
For future reference though, here's just another reason to have a production environment on an isolated network.

Single Points of Failure

Within the last 8 months, all of the production servers for a client of mine were moved out of the building they've been in and into a 'bunker', or co-lo. There was a variety of reasons for doing this. As an architect choosing a Co-location provider, and planning the move, you would want to make sure as many systems there are as redundant as possible - power supply, UPS system, networking, etc.

Well, this week everyone painfully discovered a system that wasn't redundant (or if it was, it wasn't as redundant as it should have been). Apparently the HVac systems went down. This resulted in servers getting too hot and consequently having to be shut down. Production servers.

Everything was resolved in a couple of hours, but it just goes to show, it seems that there is always one system that is forgotten.

I've actually run into another situation like this before. It wasn't nearly as big an issue for our shop as it only affected development environments. However, the Calgary airport(!!) along with most of NE Calgary was without a network connection just as long as we were. Apparently a construction crew was using a backhoe doing some digging at an intersection and accidentally cut a main networking cable that supplied most of NE Calgary with it's network connection. Kind of makes you wonder if municipalities should be considering redundant underground networking, doesn't it?

Networking Architects  work hard to eliminate as many single points of failure in their systems as they can.  Some are hard to control though.  Recently McAfee released a virus library update that wasn't tested properly and as a result shut down a plethora of systems across North America.  It thought a Windows dll was a virus (false positive) and sent thousands of systems into a perpetual reboot.  It would be an interesting bit of process engineering to figure out the best way protect your production systems from the most current viruses AND protect them from bugs like this sent out by the 'big' virus scanning companies at the same time.

Google Tools post

Good link here that lists the top Google Tools for website developers:
http://sixrevisions.com/tools/the-top-15-google-products-for-people-who-build-websites/
Personally, I start to get lost in the plethora of tools out there. Just getting Adwords properly integrated with Analytics is a headache I don't really have time to deal with (when I have so many other higher priority things to manage). I wish some of these tools where a little more straight forward to use.
My hesitation in making the investment to learning one well is that it will change too soon and too much for me to keep up with (I do have a 9-5 job along with at least half a dozen clients on the side). I need to focus my attention on where I get the most return on my time investment - and learning how every single Google Tool works doesn't rate that high.
It is a good post for reference, though. I like knowing what all the different tools are out there.

More Ideas

Here's some more business ideas that I've had lately. I want to write them down so I don't forget them as they are fun to discuss with people.
- An automatic window washer for houses. Living in Calgary with all the construction and wind, windows don't stay clean very long. Wouldn't it be nice to have a little 'thing' (like the robot vacuum cleaner) that you could run on your windows?
- A job website specifically targeted to the baby boomers and finding them good part-time work.
- Any kind of inventions/devices that will help baby-boomers stay in the workplace longer. I'm sure their feet would get sore after serving customers for a couple of hours in Tim Horton's. Wouldn't it be interesting if you could install 'chairs' that ran on a 'track' behind the counter in fast food restaurants for the servers to sit on?
- I learned at a conference this past weekend that apparently there is no Canadian company offering servers on demand in 'the cloud' like Amazon's EC2. There is a potential business opportunity here for a smart Canadian company with a bit of infrastructure in place. Eucalytpus is basically a freeware version of the same software that Amazon uses to run it's cloud. Set a few servers up with that and you're ready for Canadian customers. The advantage here is other Canadian businesses are hesitant to use American cloud solutions because of the American Federal government's attitude toward privacy. Host your cloud in Canada and don't worry about the American 'Fed's' keeping an eye on your business data. :-)

More lessons learned (not mine though)

Here's another good link to a lessons learned article: http://java.dzone.com/articles/lessons-learned-taking-project It talks about how to communicate, what to have in place, and how to manage client expectations on an 'emergency fix' project. I have a special interest in this type of thing as I'm testing a new business idea here: http://www.netfocusconsulting.com/Experts.jsp