‘Twas the night in the server room, silent and cold,
No backups were stirring, a sight to behold.
The DBA sat, weary and aware,
In hopes that his databases soon would repair.
When out in the log files, there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my desk to see what was the matter.
Away to the console, I flew like a flash,
Entered some commands, my heart in the trash.
The server lights flickered, a troubling sign,
In the midst of the chaos, the disk space declined.
When, what to my wondering ear should I hear,
A reassuring voice that allayed my fear.
“Now deadlock! Now timeout! Now, replication delay!
On, fragmentation! On, failed backup today!
To the top of the stack! To the cause of the stall!
Now dash away, dash away, dash away all!”
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the drive,
The whirring and clicking, as if barely alive.
As I scratched my head, and was turning around,
Down the Ethernet cable, St. Randy came with a bound.
He was dressed all in code, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with bytes and soot.
A bundle of patches he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a troubleshooter, just opening his pack.
He was cheerful and spry, a jolly old DBA,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of the fray.
A wink of his eye and a nod of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And fixed all the queries, then turned with a jerk.
And laying a finger aside of his nose,
With a nod, up the Ethernet cable he rose.
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a shout,
And away they all flew, like a backup job, no doubt.
But I heard him exclaim, as he drove out of sight,
“Happy SQL to all, and to all a good night!“
