Voice of the DBA

Author: way0utwest

  • Automated Build and Test

    Continuous Integration (CI) is a well known process in the software development world, but it’s not often implemented with databases. This is despite the fact that database code could benefit from the practice of checking the changes on a regular basis for potential issues. This talk will show how to implement continuous integration for databases and include more realistic testing of the code for potential issues.

    We will set up CI for a SQL Server database project, using the following tools:

    • Team City (CI Server)
    • Subversion (VCS)
    • SQL Automation Pack (database -> CI integration)
    • tSQLt  testing framework
    • SQL Data Generator

    Slides

  • Team-based Database Development with Version Control

    An efficient development process requires that all of your team members coordinate their efforts. This session shows how a version control system (VCS) and standard development practices help improve the speed and quality of your development process.

    This talk will look at:

    • reasons for using VCS
    • methods for including a database in version control
    • how we share changes from a VCS
    • linking static data in VCS
    • enforcing standards in development

    Length: 60-75 minutes

    Slides:

  • Filestream needs MAX

    I wrote today’s Question of the Day for SQLServerCentral on Filestream. I asked which data type was needed for Filestream data, and gave a few choices. Someone pointed out that I wasn’t complete in my choices, and that was by design.

    Filestream is an attribute placed on a column, not a datatype. Why it couldn’t be a datatype, I’m not sure, but that would have saved some confusion. In any case, there’s only one data type that can take the Filestream attribute, and that’s varbinary(max).  Not varchar(max), not varchar, and not variant. There isn’t, of course, a FILESTREAM type.

    However I didn’t want to include MAX since I thought it might sway people towards varbinary, and I was really hoping to teach people, not have them guess. I supposed I could have included MAX with all types, but to me, the (MAX) is also an attribute for the type.

    I think it’s a good question, but if you disagree, let me know. Writing better questions is something I want to do to help the community learn.

  • Scripting

    One of the directions in which Red Gate Software is to build more tools and utilities that all of you can use for working in cloud environments. We aren’t ignoring the desktop tools like SQL Compare and Prompt (v6, yeah!) that you’ve come to appreciate and depend on, but we are investing in expanding these tools to work with a remote, services style architecture since there are plenty of companies looking at AWS, Azure, or other providers for a portion of their applications.

    I’ve been learning a bit more about the way cloud services work and one of the things that becomes important in an IaaS environment is scripting. The environment you get is a base install and if you need more software or processes to run when a new VM starts up, you need to script the various installations or configurations.

    There are some great scripting features for SQL Server, like Finebuild for installs and Powershell for most everything else. Scripting is a great way to accomplish tasks, but like most skills, it needs to be used in order to be efficient and practical for most tasks. I’ve struggled with this, and I’m sure many others feel the same way.

    However I am starting to think that Powershell might be the best investment in my future skills. The quicker I can write it and build scripts to accomplish tasks, the more I’ll be able to do over time as I build a library of commandlets and scripts. That’s if I remember to document them well so I can easily search for what I need.