I just completed a full 23 days on the road. That means I was not back at my house for 23 days.  I passed through 4 countries, too many airports to fully count, and a metric ton of Rideshare rides.  

This is my first big trip in my new role as Advocate for Red Gate Software. While most of my readers may not be road warriors like I am, I have learned lessons that should help DBA roles who read this blog.  

Also, I will have write-ups on Nordic Pg Day and Pg Day Paris very soon.  

Travel Tips that are really DBA Tips. 

1. Travel Light! If you are going to travel a lot, it’s important that you are flexible and can move quickly. When making connections and going through airports, it’s important to have as little as possible. 
   DBA Advice: Make your scripts portable and reusable. Incidents don’t care where you are. Sometimes you are not in front of your main laptop with 3 monitors and all your configurations just the way you want them. You have to be flexible and prepared to log in via sketchy wifi and ready to work on a production incident. Even better if you have prepared someone else for this, but that’s another blog post. 
2. Prep before you go, I’ve made it a habit to read through where I’m going, where I’m staying, and most likely how I’m going to reach the destination. Some locations don’t have the same rideshare as everywhere else; quick research helps with these things.
   DBA Advice: Practice your runbooks, make sure the steps and skills are clearly documented, and then practice handling incidents. You will feel a lot more confident when you get into a situation if you have already practiced what you need to do. 
3. Adapters! If you are traveling to other countries, you will most likely need a power adapter. I personally like this one; make sure it works for most of the places you intend to go. The smaller the better.
   DBA Advice: Keep up to date with new items so you can adapt easily when things come up. If you are a DBA for one major DBMS, maybe it’s time you started learning and understanding another one. Perhaps your company is planning a change soon, and you will need to be ready to adapt to new software.  
4. Treat others well. When I travel, I do my very best to be respectful and considerate to others. You have no idea how far someone has flown, how long they have been in the airport, or perhaps how many airports they have been in the last 2 days.  Traveling can be very stressful for many people, and I do my best to empathize with others in the airport.
   DBA Advice: Treat your fellow engineers and developers with respect. Perhaps they don’t know the proper way to write the SQL statement, so it doesn’t bring down production. Engineers don’t think about the DB first, as database people do, so remember that they need to learn, and you are here to teach them.  
5. Enjoy your travels! During my last trip, I spent a significant amount of time in a hotel room working on various projects and presentations. I also did this on my flights as well. This doesn’t mean I didn’t get a chance to visit the places I traveled to. Even if it’s for a short walk around the city, try to get out and see the places you travel to.
   DBA Advice: DBA life is hard. We are blamed for every problem; every issue starts with what’s wrong with the DB. Many times, you can’t even make the changes needed to fix the issue!  But you can know and enjoy the times when the system is running just fine, those times when you realize the indexes, maintenance, and application changes you have suggested have made it so you can relax and enjoy every once in a while.  Find those times and cherish them.

I hope these tips help with both DBA tasks and future travel.  I’m working on write-ups for the other events I went to and spoke at.  I look forward to seeing you at a future event……Or in an airport soon!  

Some pics from my recent travel.