Voice of the DBA

Tag: Redgate

  • SQL Source Control Webinar

    We had our first public SQL Source Control webinar, on the new product from Red Gate Software, my employer. I MC’d a private one a month or so ago, and sat in on one at SQL Saturday #28, but this was the first public one.

    I think it went well, a minor demo crash, but overall it worked well. However with 150+ attendees the questions came fast and furious. Some dups, but mostly good questions and we ran long trying to answer.

    I couldn’t comment on a lot of them, but we have the transcript, I have sent it to Red Gate, and have them working on answers. Can’t guarantee it will be done tomorrow, but by next week I’ll have answer out.

    If you believe in Source Control, this is a good product. It eases the burden of tracking changes, but doesn’t eliminate them, and there are holes.

    This is a process, however, and I’m not sure it’s fundamentally different, even with the product, from what I wrote about years ago: Version Control Part 1 – Dealing with Code.

  • SQL Source Control Webinar

    SQL_68x68_SrcCon One of the new products that Red Gate Software has released recently is SQL Source Control. I saw a demo of this product back in March as it was nearing completion, and I thought it was pretty cool. I have struggled with source control for years, and build a process that was mainly manual, and one that I’ve seen others use over the years.  It worked well, but it was prone to errors unless I was allowed to chastise developers on a regular basis for not adhering to the process.

    friends_of_rg_logo Today I acted as emcee and moderator for a semi-private webinar that demo’d the product to the Friends of Red Gate, a group that is by invitation only, but lets some customers interact with Red Gate similar to how the MVP program grants some people access to Microsoft.

    This was the first time I actually acted as a moderator, having been an attendee or presenter in the past. It went well, I think, though I definitely had a little dead air and struggled to keep up with questions and find a smooth way to interrupt the presenter. I would rather be the one presenting and let someone else handle the other work for sure.

    I think we’ll be scheduling more of these on a regular basis for some Red Gate products to get the word out more and show how they can be used to solve problems. This is one of the few that I’d purchase myself if I was doing DBA work, so we’ll start here and see what happens.

    I’m also hoping to do some other more regular webinars from SQLServerCentral, on more technical topics, across the next year.

  • The Exceptional DBA of 2010

    I’ve been a judge in this contest for the last 3 years, and each years we’ve had really good finalists, but typically a couple that stand out above the others. As we’ve gone through the judges’ voting, we usually agree on 3 or 4 of the finalists and then debate the last 1 or 2.
    This year we had a lot more interest, and a lot more deserving candidates. We didn’t have a lot of people in the middle of the pack, the whole pack moved up! We finally couldn’t get below 6, so we have six finalists instead of 5 this year, and they are:

    You can view their entries and place your vote at the Exceptional DBA site.
    The winner will get a trip to the PASS Summit and get their award at the SQLServerCentral party on Monday, Nov 8. You can see them at the party if you use the “SSC2010” code when you register for PASS.
    Hope to see you there and good luck to all the candidates.