Voice of the DBA

Tag: Redgate

Flyway Tips: Immediate Code Review for Developers

At the Redgate Summits this year, we’ve highlighted a few things in the Flyway solution that help developers improve their ability to get work done safely and quickly. While lots of developers are moving to automated systems and catching issues in pipelines, plenty of you are still working in an IDE.

This post looks at the new code analysis feature in Flyway Desktop that can help warn you of potential issues before you create that PR.

I’ve been working with Flyway and Flyway Desktop and helping customers improve their database development. This series looks at some tips I’ve gotten along the way.

Generating Good Migration Scripts

Flyway gives you determinism and consistent scripting when you generate migration scripts. Plenty of developers still do this manually, often after a lot of work and testing is done on the schema model. Once you’re sure of the changes you want to make, you can select those changes to include in a deployment.

As you can see below, I have a lot of changes, but I want to just pick one to put into a deployment.

If I click on the change, you will see that this is simply adding a new column, something developers do all the time. I’ll select that and click “Generate Migrations”

When the tab changes, the default screen shows the next numbered migration script, based on my patterns and a default description of my name. Note that there is also a “Code review checks in progress” item to the left, which is running as the code is generated.

Once this completes, you can see my code rules passed, and the Flyway AI has generated a better description of the changes than I might have typed in.

There are a number of rules by default, and these are run when the migration script is generated. You can change, add, disable, customize, etc. for these rules as appropriate for your project.

Let’s go back and select a different change. In this case, I’m selecting the “Grant” table and dropping it. It’s in the current view of the db, but not the next one.

When I click Generate Migrations and go to the next tab, you can see that the code review shows me two things: a high severity error and a warning. These are summarized at the top next to the “2 issues” button (which hides or reveals the details) as dots. If I had a lot of issues, and some of you do, this gives me a quick look.

Below that I get the details. Both of these are for the same line, which is highlighted in the middle by a triangle next to that line.

If I click the High Severity item, I have the options to learn more, which links to the actual rule on the Redgate documentation site. Or I can ignore it. This allows me to comment in the code to not run this review again.

For the warning, since this wouldn’t stop a deployment anyway, I just have a Learn more link.

There are certainly times this might be the desired action, so I like the ignore button. However, much of the time developers might be making changes to objects and not thinking about potential future issues. Code review here catches things early, before others have to get involved, and helps educate developers about the styles and standards we want enforced in our projects.

If you work with Flyway, update your desktop and give it a try. We would love to hear your feedback.

Flyway is an incredible way of deploying changes from one database to another, and now includes both migration-based and state-based deployments. You get the flexibility you need to control database changes in your environment. If you’ve never used it, give it a try today. It works for SQL Server, Oracle, PostgreSQL and nearly 50 other platforms.

Video Walkthrough

Watch me do this in video:

July 13, 2026
Monday Monitor Tips: Virtual Machine Usage and Cost

One of the things I’ve been requesting for a number of years is cost information. I could see this coming in 2015 with the move to the cloud and need to justify the resources provisioned along with sizes. Doing that effectively needs cost information.

Redgate Monitor has added a bit of cost information, and the virtual machine section in the Estate tab contains this. This post looks at what is available (as of June 2026).

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

Virtual Machines

When I first started managing VMs and moving database loads to them, one of the things that I was concerned about was the CPU and RAM usage. CFOs and lots of admins wanted these are 100% to get the most out of their investments.

I wanted something less to prevent my phone from ringing constantly.

When you pick select the Estate tab, you see a number of items, but since v143.0.2906, there is a Virtual Machines item.

If you select that, then you see all your virtual machines, along with the resource name, group, and various metrics. This is a quick overview of what’s running.

If you look at the list, some are local and some are in the cloud. In addition, to the right, I see the metrics that help me understand average usage in a few ways: CPU, memory, storage allocated and used, and costs.

There aren’t any costs above as we filter that on the demo site, but if you provide cloud credentials, we use this to get some cost information. Here’s a shot from the doc site, which shows the costs in local currency (pounds Sterling for RG) and USD, which helps normalize the costs. You can read more about this on the doc page.

If you select a machine, a blade slides out with more details on usage. Here you can see the primary SSC server. This helps me decide if this is over or under provisioned based on data. I see CPU usage across a month, along with memory and storage (not shown).

If I click the “compare with” toggle, I see the last two months overlaid, which is useful info. This helps me decide if last month was normal or an outlier. It does seem like June was a busier month than May, which is good. My boss likes busier.

As far as data, I have choices for the period, going from the last day to 6 months.

It’s up to me to keep this data, and I have an entry as well in the Data Retention settings for this data.

There’s more coming, and I know there are plans to add PaaS data as well, but if there are things you’re interested in, please contact your account rep and let them know what needs you have and why. I think this is an important aspect of monitoring that will grow over time.

Summary

This post showed the first slice of work on costing information, with an emphasis on virtual machines. There is performance as well as cost data, so you can evaluate whether you are appropriately sized for your systems.

I’m looking forward to more information, including custom costs being added for on-premises machines, as well as PaaS services.

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.

June 29, 2026
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.

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

Images around elevators.

Some fun spaces to sit and work or chat.

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.

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.

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

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

Inside there’s fake grass around the table.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Our presentation was in the Mos Eisley cantina.

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

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

There was even an audience for my presentation.

Outside, it looked like the spacers were hanging out.

With plenty of art everywhere.

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.

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

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

The elevator and stairs take you down.

Hallways have themes

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

Different sides of the facility have different themes.

Do you recognize this?

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

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.

June 24, 2026
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.

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.

We’ve prepped for broadcasts

and she’s delivered the openings.

We’ve celebrated after events in the US

In Australia

We’ve had so many smiles, together

and with friends.

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

We’ve had so many group shots

We’ve had fun

We’ve worked ourselves hard

We’ve celebrated family

And we’ve even gone to a deserted island

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.

June 19, 2026