Voice of the DBA

Tag: Redgate

The Redgate 100

The Redgate 100 is a list of 100 people that are influential in the database world in a number of categories.I made the list in a few places, which is pretty cool.

Disclosure: I do work for Redgate as an advocate, and I helped with some discussion of the list and nominations. I didn’t pick the list, vote, or make decisions.

This is a marketing effort, as are many of the “best of” awards and notices you see out there. In many case, those are often paid placement, as I’ve been offered the chance to be on those lists if I paid a fee. I always decline, or at least to date I have.

In this case, Redgate are in the business of database software and tools. We sell them, but we also support a lot of community efforts as well as are constantly researching to better understand what people need and want. Sometimes we build products in those areas, sometimes we just publish research results.

In any case, I thought this was a pretty neat idea and a great list. You can read about the selection process, which doesn’t tell a lot, other than they took some nominations, calculated some score based on what people do in the community.

While Kathi, Grant, and I work for Redgate and are on the list, part of the reason why we work for Redgate is that we do a lot in and for the community. I could say the same for Kendra who used to work for us, and if we’d have done this list before we were hired, I think we’d have been on it anyway.

This doesn’t imply that everyone who is an influential database professional is on the list. With 100 slots, there were decisions and choices, and there are some experts and incredibly valuable community people who didn’t make the list.

Thanks to all of the people who blog, speak, volunteer, and otherwise help drive the database professional industry forward.

It’s an honor, and I hope Redgate continues to do this in the future.

September 9, 2022
Database Search in SQL Monitor

I learned something new recently. I can search in SQL Monitor for a database name, not just a server or instance name.

I tested this over at monitor.red-gate.com recently after a developer mentioned this feature. If you look at the Global Dashboard, there are a lot of machines. You can see 28 instances monitored, but many more databases.

If I were looking for the DatabaseWeekly database, I would need to know which instance this was hosted on. I do know, but someone in our IT support org might not.

However, if they start typing in the search box at the, the instances shrink. This is the top left box that has “Filter by name” in light text. If I type “database”, you can see fewer instances.

If I add the weekly, then you see there is a cluster of two machines that have this database.

If I pick one of these machines, I can see the databases with this name listed.

A handy little feature I knew nothing about.

Give this a try if you have SQL Monitor and save even more time digging into performance issues. If you don’t have SQL Monitor, download an eval today and give it a try.

July 18, 2022
Alert Filtering in SQL Monitor

SQL Monitor has improved a lot over the last couple of years. We have multiple teams building features and addressing issues, and each month when we have a readout of changes, I’m impressed. Since we update the produce every week or two, customers are seeing these enhancements regularly.

Recently I saw a demonstration of the alert filtering improvements and I wanted to share a few thoughts.

Lots of Alerts

If I go to monitor.red-gate.com, there are a lot of alerts raised across our test systems. While each individual card shows the current alerts, there are more behind the scenes. I’ll write about the cards another time, but in this post, let’s just look at the Alerts tab.

You can see in the image there are 24k+ alerts, and they are distributed across a variety of systems. The left side shows the groupings for databases and a count of alerts. The main section of the screen shows lots of alert types listed, the source database, etc.

One thing I like is the use of color and visual cues. Above, most of these alerts are low level, and bordered on the left in blue. A mid level alert is shown here in yellow. This helps me to triage and decide what to do.

Filtering

While I can click on the server groups on the left and limit the views to a group (or a server), there are still a lot of alerts. The Production group shows 291 below.

The sm-dc2 shows 109 itself when selected.

One of the newer filtering options is that I can click the dropdown at the top of the screen for Alert Type and then limit what I see. The default is all alert types.

However, I can uncheck that and pick just one type, like Machine Unreachable.

Now I only see a couple of alerts.

I can also filter by the alert level, tags, a timeframe, alert property, or alert status. All of this let me focus in on specific aspects of what might be wrong with a database. Using Filters is a good way to more quickly determine what might be happening on a database and how frequently I have these issues. From there, I can use my own skills and understanding of the database to determine what might be causing alerts to fire.

If you give SQL Monitor a try, I’m sure you’ll find it valuable for managing and monitoring your estate, helping you to quickly detect and respond to issues. Download an eval today and give it a try.

June 27, 2022
Refreshing Tables in Data Masker

Data Masker for SQL Server is a product that helps to change data for compliance purposes. It works well, but it isn’t intuitive in a few ways. We bought the product and it has been improved, but it still sometimes throws me for a loop with certain features.

Recently I was editing a masking set and I added a table to the database. In this case, I opened my masking set and went to add a masking rule, but the table wasn’t there. It took me a few minutes to figure out how do to this.

This is documented, but there are a lot more words there than this simple procedure that worked for me.

Refresh the Controller

Your masking set has a controller for each schema (essentially). If you pick the controller, you can select “Edit rule”.

In this rule, go to the Tools tab. The first button is a refresh button. Pick that.

Now, you see more stuff, but in this case since I added a new table, I click the top button. This is Refresh All Tables, under the “ignore exclusion list” section.

This runs, and I’ll see my new table(s) in the left list of Known Tables. Click the Save and Update button. You should get a confirmation that tables are updated. You can turn off some of these dialogs, so this might not appear for you. I usually don’t turn these off since I demo things.

Then update the rule controller. It isn’t intuitive that you need to click “Save” or “Update” on every screen, especially in modern software where we expect changes to just be made on selection. However, this is an older design and needs the confirmation.

Now, you should see the new table in any rules you create/edit.

Data Masker is a great tool for protecting data in non-production environments. It is highly customizable and lets you meet your compliance or regulatory needs. Download an eval today and give it a try.

June 13, 2022