Tag: Redgate

  • Fun at Epic Systems

    Epic is a software developer that focuses on medical records and information. They were founded in 1979 and have grown since then to be a dominant company in their space. They remain privately held, and have a campus outside Madison, WI.

    I recently went there to discuss Redgate partnering with them and while there got to tour part of the campus. This is a bit of a dump of a number of photos, because it’s a cool campus.

    When we walked up to the first building, it was reminiscent of Falling Water. I visited that house years ago, and our host confirmed that was the inspiration for this building.

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    Connecting to that building was one that had quite a bit of a wilderness/safari/African theme. Art on the walls

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    Images around elevators.

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    Some fun spaces to sit and work or chat.

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    Walking from that building to the next, since most are connected, we came upon a mini recreation of Raiders of the Lost Ark. When I pulled on the idol, we got a soundtrack of the boulder rolling playing in the background. Very fun.

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    The basement of the next building had a recreation of a New York city deli and subway. I caught a shot of the space, where people can hang out with lunch.

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    I loved this piece of art overlaid on the iconic skyscraper worker photo.

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    In another building, there was a Hobbit theme. The entrance to one conference room looks like the Shire.

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    Inside there’s fake grass around the table.

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    And a space where you can get refreshments or sit outside of the main room,

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    Even the place where catering or refreshments might be set out continues the theme.

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    Walking further, this space has a outdoor feeling around the staircase from one floor to the next.

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    Just past that, there’s a few walls with the handprints of employees who have been there ten years. How cool is that?

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    We left the outdoors, heading for space. This was a very cool hallway.

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    And between two buildings, there was a Heaven theme, and a Hell one. If you press the buttons, the elevator doesn’t work, but it does remind me of Dante with some lights and sound.

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    Our presentation was in the Mos Eisley cantina.

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    With some statues and reproductions at one end of the room,

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    Around the conference room, there were various window spaces in the rock, each showing a different galaxy and the distance from Earth.

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    There was even an audience for my presentation.

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    Outside, it looked like the spacers were hanging out.

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    With plenty of art everywhere.

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    One thing I love is that Epic has maintained a lot of values over the years, and these are posted in every bathroom. I assume elsewhere, but I’d heard this and I saw these three items: commandments, principles, and principles of community.

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    Our meeting was protected with a notice, and a guard.

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    Epic has one of the largest, or maybe largest, underground event facilities. It was build into the ground on a former farm.

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    The elevator and stairs take you down.

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    Hallways have themes

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    And there are 11,000 seats. I’ve spoken in a few large venues, but never this large.

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    Different sides of the facility have different themes.

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    Do you recognize this?

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    Or this? In the entrance from above ground, this is near one of the escalators.

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    This was a fabulous visit, and I wish we had more time to tour other spaces. They have a new Star Wars and (I think) Harry Potter building under construction. Hopefully I’ll get to go back.

    If you want to just go and visit, you can.

  • A Career of Memories

    Annabel retired from Redgate Software this week. Across most of my career at Redgate, I’ve participated in many events, some we hosted, some we sponsored. At most of these events, Annabel has been a part of organizing, financing, executing (or all three) the events with me. From SQL in the City to SQL Saturdays to Redgate Summits to the PASS Summit, she and I have been in so many cities and venues around the world.

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    She has become a dear friend, and someone I look forward to seeing. A friendly face, a supportive friend, a joy to be around.

    I’m happy for her future, sad she’s moving on, and grateful for the time we shared together. I look forward to quiet lunches and drinks, but will miss the chaos of travel and events.

    I have so many memories across the years. Annabel might be the person I’ve worked with the most in my career. We’ve stood on stages together. I don’t have a picture of us, since I’m often on stage, but here she is with Kendra.

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    We’ve prepped for broadcasts

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    and she’s delivered the openings.

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    We’ve celebrated after events in the US

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    In Australia

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    We’ve had so many smiles, together

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    and with friends.

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    We’ve sat in meetings (clearly she’s not as excited a Becky)

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    We’ve had so many group shots

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    We’ve had fun

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    We’ve worked ourselves hard

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    We’ve celebrated family

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    And we’ve even gone to a deserted island

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    If you’ve enjoyed a Redgate event, you likely have Annabel to thank.

    I wish her well in retirement and I look forward to hearing how wonderful life is over lunch in Cambridge this fall.

  • The Book of Redgate: Taking Breaks

    We work hard at Redgate, though with a good work-life balance. One interesting observation for me (as an American) is how well most of the company in the UK works normal hours and rarely works outside of those.

    However, sometimes we do find people, especially engineers, heads down and very focused. With our engineers in the office a day or two a week, they might end up coding in a group and trying to solve a challenging issue.

    We used to have engineers working more than 8 hours regularly, often late, when they were in the office. I came across this page in the Book of Redgate.

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    The text below is: Working too hard? Why not relax with a gentle game of ping-pong.

    Our offices have always had some game tables. I don’t think we have ping pong in the new office, but we have a pool table near the coffee machines and I’ll see people taking a few minutes to play a game at different times. We also (I think) still have a foosball table.

    We have a piano upstairs, and some guitars in the foyer. I usually take a few minutes between meetings and strum some songs. Here’s the view I have most days when I’m in the office, a few minutes at a time.

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    We’re not afraid of resistant to working hard. We just try to take breaks and find balance.

    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.

  • Monday Monitor Tips: AI Alert Analysis

    We keep adding new AI capabilities to Redgate Monitor, where it makes sense. Check out this new feature we’ve added for alerts. This is a great addition to help a busy Ops staff cope with a large database estate.

    This is part of a series of posts on Redgate Monitor. Click to see the other posts.

    Alert Index Analysis

    One of the new things we’ve added in Redgate Monitor is an AI analysis of your alerts. This isn’t for every alert. Right now, we have three where this works in preview:

    • Long-running query
    • blocking process
    • Deadlock

    This is documented on its own page.

    You can see this if you go to the Alerts page and look for a blocking process alert. Here’s a URL, but this repeats regularly, so just find the alert. You should see something like this:

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    If you click on the alert, then you’ll see the details, as shown here. However, to the right is an “AI Analyze Alert” button.

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    If you click that, a blade slides out from the right, and it has some analysis in it. This has a summary at the top. For my session, this had ended, so the summary is nice in that it gives me an overview with the time of the blocking and the statement. There is also a root cause analysis below this. This is something that would help me quickly answer questions from my boss.

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    Further down there is a diagnostic review, which helps you navigate Redgate Monitor to verify things. You should use the AI to help you and still verify what it says. This is a good explanation, but worth double checking. There are also recommended actions below this.

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    It’s a good way to approach a series of alerts, especially in a busy environment where you might have lots of these alerts across different systems.

    Summary

    AI is a great tool in places, and this is one of those measured approaches from Redgate to use AI where it’s helpful and useful, and does some work for you. Looking across a bunch of similar data and getting patterns, getting some quick insight into timings, that’s useful. This might be especially great when someone calls you with a question and you need a summary.

    As always, you should verify the diagnosis and recommendations before you do something, but this does give you a quick place to start fixing chronic issues in your system. I look forward to AI analysis coming to other alerts.

    Redgate Monitor is a world-class monitoring solution for your database estate. Download a trial today and see how it can help you manage your estate more efficiently.