Voice of the DBA

Category: Blog

  • Daily Coping 14 Jun 2021

    I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag. 

    Today’s tip is to eat good food that makes you happy.

    Diet is important, and what makes you happy isn’t always what’s good for your body. Certainly moderation matters, but I’m also not someone that wants to deny myself food constantly and miss out on life.

    For me, pizza is one of those things that I really enjoy. I don’t get it often, or make it, but I did the other day. After a good workout, I swung by a local place for a couple slices to unwind and enjoy a little life.

  • Using SQL Compare for One Procedure

    A customer recently was concerned about the time to run SQL Compare for a large database. They were synching with the command line, but at times they want to just sync up a procedure or two from one database to the other.

    I knew this could be done and passed along some ideas, but decided to write a post. This post looks at how to do this.

    A CLI Comparison

    The SQL Compare command line is pretty easy to use. Lots of switches and options, but the simple thing is point it to a couple instances and databases and get a comparison. Here’s a command line.

    sqlcompare /server1:Aristotle\SQL2017 /server2:Aristotle\SQL2017 /database1:compare1 /database2:compare2

    And the result. You can see below I have a table and three procedures that are different.

    2021-06-09 17_31_32-cmd

    If I want to limit what’s compared, I can certainly use a filter, but from the command line, there’s a simple way to see certain objects. There is an INCLUDE switch that I can use to just set a filter here without creating a file.

    For example, if I want to just see stored procedures, I can do this:

    sqlcompare /server1:Aristotle\SQL2017 /server2:Aristotle\SQL2017 /database1:compare1 /database2:compare2 /Include:storedprocedure:

    This gives me just my three stored procedures.

    2021-06-09 17_42_14-cmd

    Likewise, I can also change this to a table and just get that object.

    2021-06-09 17_42_33-cmd

    If I want a specific object, I can get that as well. Here I use the include like this:

    /Include:storedprocedure:\[GetMyTable\]

    Then I get just my one object, with a faster compare. Only this one is checked.

    2021-06-09 17_44_12-cmd

    Then if I add the Synchonize switch, the changes will get deployed.

    I often find that people are looking to deploy quickly just a known object or two for some hotfix or out of band change. Using the command line let’s me pick an object that I know about and build a comparison for just that object.

    There are lots of options and ways to use SQL Compare, and I’d urge you to explore a bit as you look to improve your database deployments. If you don’t have it yet, download an eval and give it a try.

  • Daily Coping 11 June 2021

    I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag. 

    Today’s tip is to get out into a green space and enjoy nature.

    I got to do this on holiday recently. My wife and I went to Key West, and we took a day to kayak around mangrove swamps. It was surprisingly fun, and it was neat to be in nature, quite separated from everything else. Going through the tunnels in the forest was quite an experience.

    20210607_145213

    Peaceful and quiet, almost like being in another world.

  • Daily Coping 10 June 2021

    I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag. 

    Today’s tip is to think of three things you are grateful for this month and write them down.

    In the last month, here are a few things I’m grateful for:

    • my wife – she’s supported me, challenged me, taught me, and helped me enjoy life the last month.
    • kids – they all are home for a short period, which is nice. This doesn’t happen often as they are adults.
    • health – despite getting older and things not feeling good, I’m thankful I can still do a lot of the things I want to do. Got to bike, kayak, and yoga on holiday recently, and did better than a lot of people younger than me.