Voice of the DBA

Tag: Redgate

Finding and Killing Blockers with Redgate AI Tech

Redgate has a research arm, called the Foundry, that has been experimenting with AIs and DBA tasks. This post shows how GenAI tech can be helpful to DBAs in finding blocking and removing the offending client.

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

Redgate Runbooks

One of the experiments the Foundry is running is with something we’ve called Runbooks. Here’s the main screen, where I have a welcome and a chat window. This is like what I see in Claude.ai.

I have connected this to two instances in the settings, and given the tool permissions to run queries, but not execute commands. The first server is the Local 2022 Default and the second is the 2910-41433.

A Blocking Problem

I’m going to set up a blocking session with this code. Notice it opens a transaction and then performs an update.

In a second session, I’ll run this code. Notice this select is blocked and I have no results. The bottom shows this as “executing”.

Now I’ll go to the Runbooks and enter a question. In this case, I ask it what is wrong with my 2022 server, as if someone called me and said there was an issue. Imagine the “Select” query owner wondering why things aren’t returning right away.

The Redgate Runbook responds by saying it needs to run something. The first time, it asks me to approve this, which I did. Then it runs it and shows executed.

Below this I get some results of what’s returned. This isn’t different than SP_who2, but if you’ve used that tool, you often get a lot of system stuff. I Could use sp_whoisactive, but again, more results than I want without knowing anything. Here the Runbook as limited results to what I care about.

What’s more, the Runbook then tells me something about what it analyzes. This isn’t perfect, but it’s been better than what a lot of help desk/first line support people have told me.

If I know who 56 is, certainly I can ask them to close their tran. This isn’t perfect, but I can ask the Runbook to do this, as I do at the bottom of the image above.

It again asks me to run something, and when it does, I see the executed note.

If I go back to SSMS, I see the query completed.

I typically might not kill the session without more research. I could have asked for what this is, which I’ll do now for the 57 (blocked) session. What was running here? (since 56 was killed)

Again, I approve this and get results.

To me, that’s pretty cool. Using AI to help me get things done as a lever, rather than a replacement is useful. I could have set the AI checking while I finished another task, or used Slack/Teams to check with others as a troubleshoot. I could certainly let the AI run, but I want approvals. I could copy/paste the code to a tool to run it, but the AI let’s this run separately, while I could be multi-tasking with a phone call to the user, or to the help desk, or anything else. More importantly, if I had this AI working from a mobile phone (jump box, etc.) I could be doing minimal typing and have the tech working for me.

This isn’t a product, and unlikely to be one in its own right, but this is the type of thinking we do at Redgate. Harness AI, in a safe way, that’s useful.

And ingeniously simple.

Tom Hodgson runs the group that worked on this, and he have me a fun, unforgettable interview. You can watch here: https://www.red-gate.com/simple-talk/podcasts/coffee-chat-with-tom-hodgson/

Video Walkthrough

Watch this live

November 5, 2025
SQL Clone at Scale with Striped Backups

I had a customer recently reach out to ask if SQL Clone would work with 20 backup files. I decided to test this.

This is part of a series of posts on SQL Clone, which is a virtualization product from Redgate Software.

The Scenario

A customer asked about SQL Clone working with a lot of backup files (striped), like 20. Our support org said this should work and handle the max number of files, which is 64 for the backup command.

I know SQL Clone works with striped backups because I wrote an article on it, but I only tested 7 files. How to test more than that?

First, get the backups. To do this, I used a GenAI to quickly get me a command. Once I had this, I ran it and got a lot of files.

Now to get the SQL Clone image.

Image Creation

I decided to start with the GUI. This has changed since I wrote the article in that it now puts each file in a separate text box. By default you get two. I pasted in my file path and file, and then copy/pasted in the 2nd box. I continued adding them, clicking the “Add another file” at the bottom each time (see the image).

It was tedious, but it was a quick way of testing this. I likely would have taken longer than the 3-4 minutes of copy/pasting to write a PoSh script (though I need to do that). You can see most of my files below.

Once I had 32 of them, I clicked “Continue” and entered the name and location for my image. Then clicked “Create”.

It worked. The image shows my SQL Clone image being created successfully and a clone from this image.

These were small files, so the restore time was quick. Each is about 3MB, so we’re not looking at much.

Summary

This shows that SQL Clone can work with 32 files. I assume it works with 64, but that will have to wait until I have time to mess around with the PoSh to make the image command creation easy.

If you are looking to save storage space for multiple copies of databases, or give each user a consistent copy in seconds, check out SQL Clone.

Video Walkthrough

See this article in video below.

October 27, 2025
The Book of Redgate: Don’t be an a**hole

This was one of the original values:

The facing page has this text: No matter how smart you are, or how good you are at narrowly defined tasks, there is no room for you here if you’re an asshole.

This is a similar value to that I’ve seen at a few companies, such as Google’s: Don’t be evil.

I think this is one of those values that has held true over time. We try to be professional and respectful with each other. We don’t want to offend others or treat them poorly. The Oxford dictionary has this definition: “a stupid, irritating, or contemptible person.”

I probably stretch the limit of this at times, but I’m not trying to be out of balance with my pressure on others to do better work alongside my respect for them and my desire to be positive. I might not always get the balance right, but I am willing to apologize if I’ve stepped over the line.

I don’t think of anyone at Redgate as being an a**hole, which is a nice feeling. Hopefully, I’m not one.

I have a copy of the Book of Redgate from 2010. This was a book we produced internally about the company after 10 years in existence. At that time, I’d been there for about 3 years, and it was interesting to learn a some things about the company. This series of posts looks back at the Book of Redgate 15 years later.

October 17, 2025
Back in the EU

I flew to Amsterdam last night and hopefully by the time this publishes I’ll be at my hotel, catching up on messages and prepping for another Simple Talk Podcast recording.

This is my fourth trip across the water this year, with one more coming at the end of next month. It’s a lot of travel, but it’s also a lot of fun. I meet so many interesting people, learn new things about other cultures, and I really, really enjoy the food in Europe. It’s so much fresher and better than the US (on average).

This week is a day in the Redgate Amsterdam office, two days at the PASS On Tour event, and Friday at the Redgate Summit. If you’re anywhere near me, register and come join me. The events in New York and Dallas were informative, invigorating, and exciting. It will be the same here.

Please feel free to stop me and say hi if you’re attending. I always enjoy meeting people and talking about data.

September 29, 2025