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Architecting Zero Downtime Deployments–Day of Data Boston
Here are the resources for my talk at Day of Data Boston. Slides – ArchitectingZeroDowntime.pptx Slides also at: https://dayofdata.org/2026-10-03-dayofdata1150/#schedule Code: https://github.com/way0utwest/ZeroDowntime Book: Refactoring Databases Some interesting questions. I’ll write more, but a couple of quick answers as I breakfast at Logan. How do I handle expanding a column? Making it larger? This is platform and change dependent. For example, if you are expanding a varchar() column from 10 to 20, this is usually a metadata operation in…
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Development Is Fun
I was listening to The Pragmatic Engineer interview Casey Muratori about high-performance code, which I found really interesting. I’m actually considering going through his Performance Aware Programming series and (re)learning some assembly. I never thought I’d even consider doing that. I learned Assembly in high school and university, and I didn’t enjoy it. Casey is a game programmer, and there was a question in the interview about how he uses AI tools in his work. “We are…
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The Book of Redgate:A Prehistory
I’ve covered the values in a number of previous posts on the Book of Redgate. Those values came from our founders, Simon Galbraith and Neil Davidson. I am lucky enough, and honored to have known these gentlemen for many years and had the chance to sit and chat with them throughout my time at Redgate. Simon and I still get together periodically even today after 25 years. In the Book of Redgate, there’s a section about prehistory.…
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You Need a DBA Pipeline
I work regularly with a number of customers on improving their database change processes. This has been the goal of Redgate’s Database Change Management over the years, helping database systems work more like application software with DevOps principles. The idea is to move quicker and respond better to demands, while providing safety and governance. A database is a stateful machine, which is a challenge to evolve and maintain, but with good data modeling, testing, code analysis, and…
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Keeping Track of my ConEmu CLIs
I use ConEmu for my terminal interface. I’m still on Windows 10 at home, and for consistency’s sake, I run this on my Win11 laptop and the home machine. I love it, and it keeps my windows together, so that I can run multiple command prompts. However. Sometimes I find myself in this situation. I have a bunch of prompts open, and I’m not sure what is what. I know the current one is one of my…



