Voice of the DBA

Category: Blog

  • The Year in Travel

    Here’s my year, which is pre-populated with a couple more trips coming up in November. Those should be all, as I’ve declined to go back to the UK in December and am hoping to lay low a bit. These are the trips I’ve taken, plotted against distance from home.

    2023-09-29 14_50_29-TravelReport - Power BI Desktop

    A lot of similar trips. I had repeats that were:

    • London – 3 times
    • Las Vegas – 3 times
    • Chicago – 3 times
    • Austin – 3 times
    • Boston – 2 times
    • Syracuse – 2 times
    • Florida – 3 times (JAX, Orlando, Miami)
    • St Louis – 2 times
    • Dallas – 2 times

    The big trip was Alaska, which was my wife’s 50th state. I think it was 46 or so for me. I know I’m missing Maine, Arkansas, Iowa, probably one more I can’t think of right now. I’ve spent the night in all other states.

    I have (I think) a total of 30 airplane trips away from Denver. The actual flights are more like 70 with some connections. I spent 100 nights away from home, though some of those were in the mountains or camping. Or in airplanes. I probably spent 3 nights on airplanes this year.

    That’s a lot. A long year for me, and I’m likely to avoid some travel until March or April, so hopefully I can recharge over the winter and relax at home.

  • A New Word: Gobo

    gobo – n.  the delerium of having spent all day in an aesthetic frame of mind, taking photos across the city, getting lost in an art museum – which infuses the world with an aura of meaning, until every crack in the wall becomes a commitment to naturalism, and every rainbow swirling in a puddle feels like a choice.

    I wish I could get lost in an art museum, but it’s not my thing. I can enjoy them for a bit, and I like having various Van Gogh paintings as a part of my wallpaper, but only for a bit. I do, however, enjoy spending a few hours wandering a city, taking pictures, and enjoying the world for what it is. My wife and I do this more often than hitting tourist attractions when we travel. Instead enjoying life in another place as it exists during a normal day for many others.

    I do try to stop and enjoy the world I see, big things and small, as I go through life. I rarely spend all day doing anything, but I do enjoy the moments when I can.

    From the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

  • Creating a SQL Clone Image from a SQL Clone Database

    A customer asked if a new image could be created from a database that was itself a SQL Clone. It can, and I’ll show that in this post.

    This is part of a series of posts on SQL Clone, which is a virtualization product from Redgate Software.

    Creating a New Image

    To start with, I’ll look at the clones that I have deployed on a test server. As you can see below, I have a database, called “SimpleTalk”, on a local instance.

    2023-09-29 15_52_52-Zoomit Zoom Window

    I’m going to use this to create an image. First, I’ll click “Create Image” on the left. I’ll choose SQL Server, since I will use the existing cloned database as the source.

    2023-09-29 15_53_00-SQL Clone

    I pick the instance and database. As you can see, I’ve chosen the database that was listed above as a clone.

    2023-09-29 15_53_10-SQL Clone

    Next we skip the classification screen. This is a test db, so no data in there to worry about.

    2023-09-29 15_53_14-SQL Clone

    I’m not going to modify this, as this is a test.

    2023-09-29 15_53_17-SQL Clone

    Now I pick the destination, which is a local share.

    2023-09-29 15_53_21-SQL Clone

    I give this a name which differentiates from the original db and other images. I normally want to name all images as _new or _current for rotation purposes, but here I’m adding a test name since I’ll delete this right away.

    2023-09-29 15_53_32-SQL Clone

    You can see this start working.

    2023-09-29 15_53_36-SQL Clone

    And it completes in about the time for a restore. If I had added masking, this would run a little slower.

    2023-09-29 15_53_59-SQL Clone

    I have the image created, so it’s time to test this with a new database.

    Validating the Image with a Clone

    Click “Create clone” on the left menu and you get a dialog that asks for an image. I’ll pick the one I created above.

    2023-09-29 15_54_06-SQL Clone

    Once we chose the image, we can modify it. We won’t here.

    2023-09-29 15_54_11-SQL Clone

    Now we add an instance and a name. I’ve entered those below.

    2023-09-29 15_54_24-SQL Clone

    Once this completes, I can see this database, and my other clone in the SSMS Object Explorer.

    2023-09-29 15_54_37-SQLQuery14.sql - ARISTOTLE.sandbox (ARISTOTLE_Steve (75))_ - Microsoft SQL Serve

    If I query both databases, I get the same data, since I haven’t changed either one during this process. Note below that each one of these queries is from a cloned database.

    2023-09-29 15_55_23-SQLQuery1.sql - ARISTOTLE.SimpleTalk Cloned Clone (ARISTOTLE_Steve (54))_ - MicrThe SQL Clone cloned database is just a database. SQL Server sees it as any other database, as SQL Clone presents the mdf/ldf/ndf as any other database. You can back it up like any other one.

    If you are looking to save storage space for multiple copies of databases, or give each user a consistent copy in seconds, check out SQL Clone.

  • SQL Saturday Boston 2023 Slide Decks

    Thanks to everyone who came to my sessions at SQL Saturday Boston 2023. I’ve added the decks to the schedule, so you can click my session and will see the download there. You can see this below, and all speakers can edit their sessions and upload the deck. See the download below:

    2023-10-14 13_43_08-SQL Saturday Boston 2023 (#1046)

    I’ve also copied the links here for slides:

    For the first session, Architecting Zero Downtime Database Deployments, there is also a GitHub repo here. Clone the repo down (or fork) and you can follow the sessions along. The repo is at: https://github.com/way0utwest/ZeroDowntime

    In here, there are a few folders, as shown here:

    2023-10-14 13_45_44-way0utwest_ZeroDowntime_ Code for my zero downtime presentation

    The two items from the session are the DBClient, which is a Visual Studio 2019 project, and the SQL folder, which has all the setup (and teardown code). Each script is numbered, and you can run them in order. There are also some comments in each for when to flip feature flags.

    If you find issues, please submit an issue in the repo.