Recently, I got a bill from Azure. That's not an unusual thing for many of you, but for me it was a surprise because it said I was late paying. I've had a number of services running, and I thought at first that I had left something running too long, like a VM. As I checked, most of the things were paused, even the expensive ones like a Synapse workspace. Instead, I found that my free credits were not being applied. Fortunately, I had changed credit cards or I might have been billed for a few months before I noticed.

This was a change in how Microsoft managed benefits, which is fine. I opened a support call and someone helped me, but it took several days to get a response. I was slightly worried about the bills, so I decided to audit the things I had running.

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I've spent quite a bit of my career as a DBA/sysadmin/Operations person. However, I've had my share of development positions as well. As I work with customers who look to mature their database development to be more like other software development, I've noticed that PRs sometimes don't get handled as smoothly as we might like. In some sense, they are like help desk trouble tickets that never get closed.

One of the first things I caution people about is specifying specific reviewers, especially DBAs. There are often DBAs who are the gatekeepers for code, but if we require them to be the only ones to review code before a CI or test process, we really slow things down. This often happens in smaller environments where one DBA wants to avoid anything impacting their job. They want to review everything before it commits.

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Some of you out there are positive about AI and looking to use them. Some of you aren't too thrilled with the tools and might avoid using them. I think that not learning to harness the power of an AI is a mistake. This technology is going to change the world in many ways and you need to learn how it can help you.

You also should learn where the sharp edges are as there are some very, very sharp edges.

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I get a regular email from Quora, with questions that I might be able to answer or might be of interest to me. There are some database questions, some Tesla ones, and others, but recently I caught an interesting one that asked: why are most people broke? To be fair, there are a lot of questions that appear to be trolling, not people seeking answers, but this one caught my eye. This isn't very data-related, but it is a bit of advice from someone who is getting older.

As I look towards retirement in the next decade or two, part of my planning is ensuring that finances are in order. Once I stop working or slow down, the economics of my family change, and we need to be thinking forward to ensure that we have enough funds for our daily living. This can vary in different parts of the world, but I'm surprised at how many people don't really think about covering their daily expenses without a salary.

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As I get older, I find that time is the most valuable commodity I have. It's the one thing that I need more of, but I can't get it. Even if I find more efficient ways of doing things, it seems there's an endless list of things at work and on the ranch that need to be done.

It seems to be the same for most of my friends in other jobs, whether in medicine, law, or any other position; they're often overloaded with more work than they can get done in a week. Arguably, it's not all important work, as sometimes we might tackle a task, only to have our boss throw the work away or delay the project. That's annoying, but I also understand priorities change.

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I studied economics in university, which isn't that close to database work, though I did have to work through linear regression problems by hand. I always enjoyed mathematics, so this wasn't a hardship. Until I purchased a PC that was capable of letting me do graphs and calculations in PASCAL and BASIC. Then I realized that my enjoyment wasn't that efficient or useful, and a computer could help me get things done way more efficiently.

Many of us work on systems that process tremendous amounts of data, something our organizations couldn't complete without computer hardware, efficiently or not. We just wouldn't be able to get the work done by hand. That's the main reason why downtime is such a problem in the modern world; we can't fall back to manual systems in many cases.

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One of the most prolific and popular authors at Simple Talk has been Phil Factor. He wrote many pieces on all aspects of database work and has probably written more articles on the Redgate Product Learning site than anyone else. He has entertained, informed, and inspired many database professionals in his many years as an author.

Phil, aka Andrew, passed away recently. This was a shock to many of us and a sad day.

Tony Davis introduced me to Phil, whom I always thought of as Andrew, many years ago when I first traveled to Redgate. Tony published a tribute to Andrew on Simple Talk and has many more fond memories of Andrew. If you ever get the chance to meet Tony, ask him for a few.

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Many of you reading this likely have an Availability Group (AG) set up on at least one database in your organization. Maybe not most, but many of you as this has proven to be a technology that many people like for HA/DR, upgrades, and probably other uses. As the technology has evolved from it's SQL Server 2012 debut, it has improved in many ways. This might be one of the few features that has received regular attention from the developers in Redmond across multiple versions.

That's not to imply this is a foolproof or bug-free feature. Numerous people have had issues with the various types of AGs. From setup to performance to scale, I've seen many people post questions and search for answers on how to get their system running smoothly and reduce any late-night calls.

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Take a moment and think about how much work you do each day. If you write code, how much time do you actually spend writing code around meetings, admin work, and other tasks. If you manage systems and develop scripts, how often do you get to work on a script, change it, upgrade it, or add a new feature? I bet it's a minority of time for most of you. Studies show that many developers spend only an hour or two writing code each day. I would guess it's lower for sysadmins or DBAs who incorporate coding into their jobs.

Now think about how much you enjoy each thing you do. I assume meetings aren't the most exciting thing you work on, nor is updating a document for others to read. When I wrote code as the main part of my job, solving the problem, trying different algorithms, experimenting with enhancements, those were the fun times.

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There has been a lot of news about air traffic problems in the US in 2025. I haven't had any delays due to this, though I've gotten a few messages in my travels that I might want to reschedule. There was an article that some of the technology still used in various facilities is old and needs upgrading. Old as in Windows 95 and floppy disks.

That's old, but obviously it still works. Even with the various accounts of problems, almost every day thousands of flights are managed successfully by the people who run these systems. They're not alone, as the article also points out that some other transit systems make do with technology that most of us would never think of using for any system.

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