A Security Change with SQL Compare 15

Posted on July 24, 2023 by way0utwest

Actually, this is a change for many products and software that connects to SQL Server. Updated drivers require us to now decide to trust the server certificate.

This is part of a series I have on SQL Compare from Redgate Software. It’s an amazing piece of software that you should try if you haven’t. Download an eval today.

I opened a project recently in SQL Compare 15 to check something for a friend. I went to run the compare and saw this:

2023-07-20 14_05_48-(local)_SQL2017.SimpleTalk_1_Dev v localhost.SimpleTalk_1_Dev.scp

At first I thought that one or both of my instances were broken, but I realized that this is a security issue. Updated drivers changed the default encryption options, which means we need to specify this.

2023-07-20 14_06_02-Zoomit Zoom Window

The products at Redgate have been getting updated across the last year to add in a “trust server certificate” box. It’s not set by default, which I find annoying, as I rarely find SQL Server’s with certs. Certainly none of my test instances, and I wish I could set this to check by default.

In any case. when I check the boxes in the image above, the compare runs.

Something to keep in mind and a muscle habit to build if you still use SQL Compare often. If you don’t, give it a try. It’s amazing.

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Early Bird Pricing for the Data Community Summit Ends Jul 26

Posted on July 24, 2023 by way0utwest

The early bird pricing for the PASS Data Community Summit ends this week, on Jul 26. After that, there is a bump, so let you boss know this is the time to register. If you’re considering attending, then you essentially get one night in a hotel for free if you register this week.

This the the largest and best conference for data professionals. You’ll have experts from all over the world and quite a few Microsoft developers attending. This is a great chance to network with them, learn, and ask questions that might save a support case or help you solve a problem.

Talk to your boss about the event and explain how this benefits your career and helps the company. Many people have found this invaluable over the years as they bring knowledge and contacts back to their organization.

Make a case, get approval, and get registered today and I’ll see you in Seattle this November.

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The Choice of SQL Server Version

Posted on July 22, 2023 by way0utwest

Every quarter Brent Ozar publishes some data from his SQL ConstantCare® service. This is a service where companies contract with Brent to install a service on their instance, collect data, and give them simple, short daily emails on things they should check. It’s a good service for companies who don’t employ skilled DBAs and may relay on a developer or sysadmin to manage a SQL Server instance. While this is a self-selecting group of organizations, across his 3,100+ monitored servers, there are likely trends that could apply to the world of SQL Servers in general. After all, for every gung-ho, let’s-upgrade DBA, there’s probably a sysadmin with a similar mindset.

In any case, the summer 2023 report form Brent shows that SQL Server 2022 adoption has slowed. His report is down, though I doubt anyone downgraded. Perhaps someone was testing and added a 2022 server in the spring they removed. Or maybe they tried 2022 and then went to the cloud. He does show 2019 growing and 2016 shrinking, which dovetails with what I see from my memory of various questions at SQL Server Central. I see people asking about moving from older versions to 2019 much more than 2022.

I wonder what that is? Brent thinks this is because people standardized on 2019 installs and haven’t moved to 2022. So anyone adding new instances likely uses an image/setup/process for 2019. That matches with a few of my customers, who haven’t had some of their install or security processes updated and are still adding 2019 instances. I think that’s short-sighted as 2019 is 4 years old, but I also understand that people get busy and updating anything for a new version isn’t a priority.

There have also been some problems with updates, and Brent thinks companies are skipping 2022. I don’t know, but I do wonder what you think about your estate and how things are changing. I assume if you are still running 2014- at this point, you’ll just live with the server as long as you can. I hope you’re at least on a VM so you can restore quickly if there are issues (assuming you back up VMs).

If you run 2016/2017, are you looking to upgrade? Considering 2022 or stick with 2019? Or kick the can and hope that SQL Server 2024 or 2025 will be better? Actually, take a guess as well on the next release date. I’ll take a page from Brent and run a contest for you to guess the next release date.

Steve Jones

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Creative Development

Posted on July 21, 2023 by way0utwest

I was working with a customer recently that has a development process that both made me cringe and struck me as very creative. In this case, the customer has software they have written when spawning a few databases for each new project that is created. There are three types of databases created for each project, with unique names for the project. The DDL and DML to create these initial databases are stored in a central database as a set of rows in a table.

To make changes to their software, developers create a project (with new databases) and then alter the application and the database to meet the requirements. These changes then need to be captured and applied to a development template database. There is a template for each of the three different databases created for projects. Changes made to these are processed and then added to the central database for new projects, and to upgrade existing ones.

This creates a complex development process with lots of potential for mistakes and simple human error. However, that’s the state of the software, and so I’ve been trying to help them find ways to simplify this as well as make it more robust across time (and staff changes).

The situation got me thinking, however. While they or I might not like the process, I do admire the creativity it took to set this up and build a system that allows custom software to meet their needs for project tracking work. It’s a solution that works, albeit one that now looks overly complicated. However, I wasn’t part of the initial design or the various evolutions since then. Perhaps I’d have ended up in a similar place, given the knowledge and requirements known at each point in time.

I’m sure many of you have an architecture or a process that is unusual in some way. Perhaps you designed it, or perhaps someone else did, but there was some creativity in building a solution to a problem. Today I’m looking to hear the stories of where you’ve seen creative solutions in development, either to a programming problem or maybe to a process that manages or deploys your software. Maybe you deal with remote systems that aren’t connected. Maybe you work with large numbers of sharded databases. Perhaps you have cultural challenges that require creativity to ensure you can update your software.

Let us know today what sorts of creative development solutions you’ve seen implemented.

Steve Jones

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