Category: Blog

Getting Started with Database DevOps, DLM, and New Tools

Next Tuesday is the next installment of our DLM series from Redgate. I’m off the hook, with Grant and Arneh showing off Git, Team City, and Octopus Deploy as the main tools. Register today and see how you can get started.

We’ve been running this series for a year, with a focus on showing different tools being used to deploy database changes. Of course, we do showcase some Redgate tools from the Toolbelt, but the idea is to integrate with various other common development tools.

If you’re looking for an easy way to get started, consider downloading and trying DLM Dashboard, a free tool to audit and monitor your database schemas.

If you’ve missed any, you can see these combinations of Version Control, CI, and Release tools:

	Version Control	Continuous Integration/Build	Release Management/Deployment
Webinar link	Git	TFS Build in VSTS	Microsoft Release Management
Webinar link	TFSVC	TeamCity	Octopus Deploy
Webinar link	TFSVC	Jenkins	Octopus Deploy
Webinar link	Subversion (SVN)	TeamCity	Octopus Deploy
Webinar link	TFSVC	TFS Build in VSTS	Microsoft Release Management

Feel free to watch any of these, or come to the next webinar and ask questions live. There are more resources in our DLM library.

DLM really can help smooth your development and deployment process, reducing mistakes, and allowing you to deliver enhancements to customers faster.

July 13, 2016

Thanks, Karla

I heard the news this week, and I’m still sad. Karla Landrum is leaving PASS after five years of acting as the Community Evangelist.

Thank you, Karla, for all you’ve done.

In the last five years, we’ve seen tremendous growth in the SQL Saturday franchise, as well as other chapters. Most of that has to do with Karla’s work ethic and success in supporting even organizers all over the globe.

When Andy Warren and I transferred the SQL Saturday franchise to PASS, we were hoping that the organization would provide a bit more support and help in organizing events. Our expectations were wildly exceeded with tremendous growth in the number of events. In 2010, when we transferred the responsibility, there had been 26 events held. That was across the span from Oct 2007 to Mar 2010.

That tremendous growth in 2011-2015 is Karla. Even this year is on pace to exceed last year’s event total.

All of you that have attended, spoken at, or learned something from a SQL Saturday should send a thank you to Karla for your tireless advocacy and help in ensuring that many of us could get free training almost every weekend somewhere in the world.

Karla will be missed by many of us, and I just wanted to publicly thank her and let her know how much I’ve enjoyed working with her over the years.

I hope PASS can find someone that can continue her work in growing our SQL Server community.

July 13, 2016
T-SQL Tuesday #80–Chris Yates’ Birthday

It’s the 80th version of T-SQL Tuesday. You can see all the parties from the past on my page, but feel free to jump in here or elsewhere. This is a monthly event, where anyone can write on a topic.

This month’s invitation is from Chris Yates, with today being his birthday.

Happy Birthday, Chris!

The topic is open this month, so here we go.

SQL Server Isn’t Easy Enough

I think that SQL Server is a fairly easy system to work with. I first started working with SQL Server on OS/2 1.3, and had come from working with lots of Unix, DOS, and Netware command lines. Windows 3.1 was still new, and we thought all the various command line tools for SQL Server were great.

Even as I continued on in my career, working with Oracle on multiple platforms, DB2, and other relational systems, SQL Server was the easiest to use.

However, I still find some simple, easy things that aren’t easy to handle. I think there is work being done with some of these items in Redmond (nothing specific I know or can say, but just a feeling), but these items have been an issue for some time.

Database and Log Backups

One of the really simple things many SQL Server professionals know is that we need to schedule at least one full backup to run, and then regular log backups, at least by default. The alternative is to set the database to simple recovery (not the default).

The problem is that for many installations, people don’t realize that they need to do this. While it’s easy to say they should learn this, it’s also silly. This could be easily handled with software setup. Create a default backup setup for each new database, as part of the database creation wizard.

I’d really like to see these defined in the database themselves, and loaded into the instance from the database, and hopefully we’ll get there.

Replication

I don’t have specific complaints here, though I could come up with some. The real issue I see is that replication is very brittle. The way replication works, and it’s barely changed in a long time, is that it requires lots of setup, and isn’t tolerant of issues. Far, far too often the solution when deploying changes to the database, or troubleshooting issues is to drop replication and re-enable it.

Most people running replication have been burned and end up scripting everything as soon as it’s set up.

This shouldn’t be that hard, or at the very least, some work should be done to improve the robustness of replication.

More

There could be other things, but I’ll stop here, and see what else people say about SQL Server this month.

July 12, 2016
A New Look

I was browsing around the Internet recently, collecting links for Database Weekly when I came to Michael J Swart’s blog. I love Michael’s writing and drawing. On a whim, I asked if he’d do an avatar.

He agreed, and sent me some costs. He’s creating art, and I was happy to pay for a new image. We went back and forth a bit and ended up with this:

I like it. It captures me life in sunny, outdoor Colorado and has a nice Hawaiian shirt in it. Plus, it has my colors. I’m a Virginia grad and Broncos fan, and like the blue/orange look.

If you want an avatar, I’m sure you can contact Michael. I know it’s not for everyone, but it was fun for me. It might make a great gift for someone in your life as well.

July 11, 2016