Voice of the DBA

Tag: presentations

  • A Practical Approach to Version Control

    Abstract

    Chances are, your team has several point-in-time backups for your databases. After all, they’re essential for recovering the system in an emergency. And, chances are, you’ve got a version control system (VCS) to provide the same capabilities for your applications.

    But what about version control for the database, too?

    Come to this session to see how you can create a more efficient database development platform by integrating your VCS with SQL Server. In real-time, you’ll see how versioning, branching, merging, and the other manual tasks you hate can fade away with just a few tips, tricks, and tools.

    Level: 200

    Demos

    I’ve built these demos:

    • Connecting your database to a version control system. I use Git here, but can use SVN (or TFS online with connectivity)
    • History and Changes – Getting a few of the changes made over time, tracking to a user, undoing changes.
    • Object Locking – Using Redgate’s SQL Source Control, but explaining how a semaphore is needed
    • Branching – A look at creating a branch in Git and then working with a second database.

    Downloads

    Powerpoint: SITC15_SteveJonesPracticalVCS.pptx

  • Learn tSQLt and Unit Testing in Philadelphia

    SQL Saturday #390 is in Philadelphia on June 6, 2015. This is my second time attending the event, and not only am I speaking on Saturday, but I’ll be delivering information on Friday at a pre-con.

    My first SQL Saturday pre-con is taking place in Philly. I’m lucky to be asked by Sebastian Meine to co-present a day of training. We’re delivering a precon on Unit Testing in SQL Server with tSQLt. It’s available for the low price of only $99.99 now, with the price rising to $149.99 when the event begins.

    We’ll be covering quite a bit of the framework, showing you the ways in which you can write tests with examples and code that you can run that day. We’d like you to bring a laptop to write tests along with us, but we’ll have the code available later if you want to test back at the office. Here’s our agenda.

    • Introduction to Unit Testing
    • What is tSQLt?
    • Your First Test
    • Executing Tests correctly
    • Effective use of Assertions
    • Separation of Concerns
    • Testing Exceptions
    • Test Case Heuristics
    • Dealing with Test Data
    • Other Types of Testing
    • How Unit Testing fits into your Development Process

    Sebastian is the owner and developer of the tSQLt framework, which I’ve been using quite a bit over the last few years. It’s an amazing project, and really expands the ability of SQL Server developers to build better code and prevent regression issues in their applications. Quite a few SQL Server MVPs and highly successful consultants are using the framework, and I’d urge you to give it a try.

    If you’re in the Philadelphia area and want to jumpstart your testing knowledge, consider coming to our pre-con. It’s a great way to rethink how you write SQL code and put testing in place in a fairly low impact fashion.

    Register today

    Database Source Control

    If you’re in town on Thursday and want to learn about Version Controlling your databases, Redgate is also working with Ike Ellis to put on a full-day workshop covering Database Source Control. It’s $500 for the day, and you’ll get some in-depth knowledge on how to work with SQL Server code and version control as well as participate in hands-on labs that will give you the skills to implement the processes yourself. Find out more..

  • Version Control for Databases

    This is based on my Team Based Development with Version Control talk, which has evolved a bit.

    Abstract

    Getting your database under version control is ultimately a way of communicating changes and collaborating with team members, maintaining an audit trail and ensuring you always have a version to roll back to.

    In this session, we’ll cover why this gives you and your team a crucial advantage in reducing the risk in your development processes. We’ll also discuss another door that your team opens by adopting solid version control: setting up the fundamentals of continuous integration. You will learn what build automation means as a first step towards continuous integration and the value it brings as part of your evolving deployment process. We’ll also discuss branching strategies, and how to manage this for databases as part of your evolving deployment process.

    Goals

    • Understand the value of version/source control for databases
    • Learn the tools, standards, patterns and best practices needed to manage a database from source control
    • Identify the necessary flow within a team needed to develop a database with source control

    This talk includes the following demos:

    • Move database DDL into VCS manually
    • Link database DDL and lookup data with SQL Source Control
    • Make development changes and check into VCS
    • Setup a new developer DB linked to VCS
    • Changes flowing back and forth between developers
    • Resolving conflicts between development changes made by two people
    • Basic branching of code for bug fixes and linking a database for development work to an old branch

    Length: 45-75 minutes. Shorter lengths with fewer demos.

    Slides: Get Database Under Source Control.pptx (Slideshare)

  • Get Testing with tSQLt

    tSQLt is a testing framework that is designed to help you write repeatable, isolated tests against your database code. In this session we will briefly examine the goals of testing, where it can be used in an automated deployment pipeline, and introduce you to the tSQLt framework. We’ll show you how to design and write tests to enforce standards, check calculations and other DML operations as well as check exception handling. You will see how a real world refactoring task can be tested in a repeatable manner. Learn how you can incrementally write tests that help you build higher quality code and minimize the introduction of errors against your existing objects.

    We will examine a variety of tests, including

    • Checking table metadata
    • Checking function calculation
    • Isolating a procedure test from an embedded function
    • Checking for error handling

    PowerPoint slides:

    Code: GetTestingtSQLt.zip

    Presentations: