A Quick Test Data Manager Eval with My Database Backup

Posted on January 29, 2025 by way0utwest

I wrote about getting the Redgate Test Data Manager set up in 10 minutes before, and it was a great post. In that one, the sample database Northwind was created and used. However, Alex Yates has modified the scripts to work with backup files, and I’ll show you how easy this is in just a few minutes.

This is part of a series of posts on TDM. Check out the tag for other posts.

The Setup

I’ve filtered my SSMS to only show databases with BB in the name. You can see I have none.

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I also have a backup file of a baseball database on my d: drive. My local instance has access to this folder as I use for backups and restores in dev/test work.

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While I can pass these parameters in, it’s easy to just change the values in the file after cloning the repo. This way it’s easy to see what’s going on.

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That’s it, now let’s fire up PowerShell.

Running the Eval

When I run the file, I see it start up and report the various values. You can see that it’s set the base database name to “BB” and I should see the two databases with the suffixes created. I also see my backup path.

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This runs and in a few minutes, I see that the databases have been created and we are ready to subset.

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Checking SSMS with a refresh, I see the databases.

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If I type “y”, the subsetter runs, and very quickly. This isn’t a massive database, but it is thousands of rows, which makes it easy to play with.

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If I run counts, I see this. The left is the full restore, which has 16k records. The subset, on the right, has about 10% of that, with 1644 rows. Pretty cool. So far, this has taken less than a couple of minutes.

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Now let’s continue to press “y” and get the classification, mapping, and masking done. Two tables were found with PII (names) and masked.

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If I query the tables, I see the results below. Notice that not all values were moved, as the first ID in the subset is 11, but we can see IDs 11 and 22 were masked.

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This was a very quick look at running an eval with my own database backup, not a sample db. We’ve had a few people ask to do this for their own testing, and we modified the scripts to work with backups.

Give TDM a try today from the repo and a trial, or contact one of our reps and get moving with help from our sales engineers.

Video Walkthrough

Check out a video of my demoing this below:

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Get a PAT in Azure DevOps

Posted on January 27, 2025 by way0utwest

I have a presentation recently on Continuous Integration Using Local Agents in Azure DevOps and one of the things I do in there is get a PAT for Azure DevOps to use in configuring an agent. This post shows how to do this, as I found this wasn’t obvious when I was searching out information.

Azure DevOps Organizations

In Azure DevOps, at the top level you have an organization. Here’s my way0utwest org.

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In the lower left corner, there is this, which is somewhat hidden. As you can see, it’s next to the bottom projects in my org, just above my Windows bar.

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If I click this, I have lots of settings. I have lots of different things. One would think this would be a place where I could create a PAT for my agent to connect with.

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It’s not.

If I am setting up an Agent and need a PAT, I need to do to the upper right, under my user settings. This is the second from the right (as of Jan 2025) icon. If I click this, I see PATs.

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Once I click Personal access tokens, I get to this screen. You can see my PATs and a “New” buton in the upper right. Click this to create a new token.

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You get this screen. Apparently this token is only used to register the agent. I’ve usually granted this full access, but I haven’t dived too deep into what happens if I only limit rights. I’ll try that soon. As with any security issue, make sure you know the implications of settings.

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Once you create this, you get a notice that you need to copy this now or lose it. There’s a handy copy button, so use it.

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Summary

This is a quick post on creating tokens in Azure DevOps. As with any security change, make sure you know what the implications are for creating and using these.

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The Local OLLAMA Gui

Posted on January 27, 2025 by way0utwest

I ran a small ollama model in a container and have been doing some experiments. One of the things I wanted to do was get a GUI so I wasn’t always running docker to connect (with –it) or writing code to interact.

I saw a post somewhere that there is a webgui, so I decided to try it. This post shows the quick setup process.

This is part of a series of experiments with AI systems.

Run the Container

The command I used was this one:

docker run -d -p 3000:8080 --add-host=host.docker.internal:host-gateway -v ollama-webui:/app/backend/data --name ollama-webui --restart always ghcr.io/ollama-webui/ollama-webui:main

This downloaded and ran the container, which I forgot about until I saw it running in my Docker list.

Connecting and Getting Going

The command above runs on port 3000, so I went to port 3000 on my local host and saw this:

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I clicked signup and added info, which isn’t really checked.

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The first account is set at the admin and I see this screen:

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I need to select a model to query, and when I click the drop down, I see the two I downloaded as part of my ollama container setup.

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I picked mistral and started asking questions. I started with clicking the prompt on the screen, and I saw:

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If you play with different models, give this a try as an easy way to run an AI on your local machine and see how well it can help you with anything you do.

Note, be wary, and make sure you read the disclaimer at the bottom (circled by me)

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The Era of Cloned Humans

Posted on January 27, 2025 by way0utwest

AI-technologies are evolving at an alarming rate. The ability of LLMs to produce drafts, review work, even write some code continues to improve to the point where junior level workers are in danger of having less opportunity than in the past.

Perhaps even more alarming is the ability of AI technologies to mimic what they find in the real world, which can include voices. As with any technology created to make the world better, criminals will find a way to use it for nefarious purposes. This article notes that the FBI has warned families to have a secret word or phrase, as criminals are using AI to clone the voice of a family member asking for financial help.

Can you imagine getting a call from your spouse, parents, or children, saying that they’re in trouble and need some money right away? With AI tech, the voice could even respond to your questions, mimic anxiety or distress, cry, or who knows what.

Last year Microsoft announced a text to speech technology that can closely simulate a person’s voice with just 3 seconds of audio. I’m sure that capability has improved in a year and soon we may not be able to trust the voices we hear. We certainly can’t trust the photographs we see, something that we enjoy when we see artists photoshop images for fun, but when we look at an image  in the news, we want it to be real, but we can’t trust that an organization hasn’t manipulated a photo. When anyone could simulate another’s voice, things can go wrong quickly.

I assume the ability to fake video in real time is coming soon. With enough hardware and some imagery, I would guess AI models will be able to hold a Facetime-type call as a human, fooling most people that might not know the person extremely well. At some point, since all our images and video are digital anyway, I assume that without some security measure, the tech could likely fool almost everyone.

Even as I write this I doubt how well the quality is, but I’m sure that it will continue to improve to the point where we might be loathe to trust remote interactions. This has the potential to be a security nightmare for some people, and I worry about the scams and losses criminals will inflict upon the unsuspecting.

This is one type of technology whose negatives will far outweigh the positives.

Steve Jones

Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Spotify, or iTunes.

Note, podcasts are only available for a limited time online.

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