Voice of the DBA

Tag: Redgate

Focusing on Business Value

This was a fun talk with David Atkinson at Redgate. We talk satellites, finance, and more. Including some early history of the company.

We are talking about how to get things done for the business, to be effective in your work. Tools help, but it’s more that we want you to reframe the way you work to ensure that we don’t just try to get our specific task done, but ensure that our task gets a feature or fix into a customer’s hands.

Take a quick 30 minutes break and enjoy this discussion. I had fun recording it and hope you do as well.

November 8, 2019
Teams in SQL Clone and SQL Provision

SQL Clone v4 is out, and the big change is the addition of the Teams feature. I guess technically this is just for SQL Clone, which is included in SQL Provision, but hey, I need the Google juice with both product names.

If you look under the permissions menu item, you see any specific permissions you’ve created, but there’s also a Teams tab at the top.

If you click on this, you will see the basic overview, and the chance to start using Teams instead of individual permissions. This is designed to let you group images and instances for groups of users, rather than the gross permissions at the admin/image/clone level.

There is an article that describes and an overview of Teams and another that talks through the DevOps Self-Service with Teams in our Product Learning section of the Redgate Hub. These will help you get started implementing the feature.

Personally I like the matrix approach to security of using groups that have permissions to objects and then putting users, or groups, in the group to handle access. It worked well for me in SQL Server and in AD.

Teams does this with a three phase approach, letting you limit the source (images), the target (instances) and the user in a matrix, which really simplifies the view that any particular user has of the clone environment. I like the blade we have that shows this.

Once you start to get used to building images and deploying clones, there can be a lot of moving parts in a semi-mature environment, which can be confusing and problematic for developers that just need databases. Limiting the number of images or instances that a group can see will make it easier for them to just get the databases they should.

What’s more, I could use this with masked and unmasked images for separate teams, allowing developers to use one set of data and customer service or QA to have another. With colors to designate teams, this makes things easier for admins.

Ultimately the matrix approach is flexible, but also confusing, so limit the number of teams to what you need and try not to be too granular. That ensures new admins can understand the configuration and limits the chances you’ll accidentally grant too many rights to a user.

Give SQL Provision (SQL Clone + Data Masker) a try today if you are looking for ways to quickly provision large scale databases for development.

November 4, 2019
SQL in the City Comes Back to Seattle

This year at the PASS Summit, Redgate is holding our SQL in the City Summit as one of the pre-con events at the conference. You can add this in as a part of your conference registration and come learn about DevOps and how to build the best software development process for your database. We’ll focus on the Redgate solutions, but our speakers will talk about the general practices and ideas as well.

We’ll just give specific examples with the amazing Redgate Toolbelt tools.

I’ll be there on Monday, Nov 4, for our SQL in the City and hopefully I’ll see a few of you there as well. Kendra and I also have a pre-con talk on Tuesday on development patterns, so you can add in both and spend two days with me.

October 17, 2019
Launching SQL Compare with Context

Years ago Redgate Software started some work to link our tools together. I remember early efforts, about which I had dubious thoughts as to the value. I hadn’t looked at how the work had progressed until a little earlier this year, when I started examining in more detail some features I had missed.

One of these is in SQL Source Control, as it relates to SQL Compare. I often don’t have SQL Compare running, but I will find places where I want to look at the quick differences between one database and another, or between the database I’m working on and source control. While I can easily launch SQL Compare, or find a project with that is set up, it’s slightly annoying to have to find a file or create a new project and load a context.

Much easier to use SQL Source Control.

The Product Menu

In SQL Source Control, there is a Redgate icon in the upper left corner. When I’m working in SSMS, I can quickly switch over to the SQL Source Control (SOC) tab and click the icon.

This will open a long menu, with a list of my Redgate tools. SQL Compare is at the top, and all other tools listed below.

If I click the ellipsis in the SQL Compare pane, I’ll get a couple of options.

If you don’t see these options, then the database you’re working on isn’t linked to a VCS. That’s a separate problem.

This feature, however, is designed to fit into our DevOps solution, bringing the tools together for those people that are working inside of the Redgate process. In this process, I can quickly launch many of the tools with context. When I click the “Launch with ‘ToolbeltDemo’, I see this when Compare opens.

My current database is listed on the left. I can then pick a database on the right, or a backup, project, etc., and run the comparison.

A minor time saver, but a nice touch that eases my mental focus. If I continue to work, or check something while I wait for SQL Compare to launch, I know when I come back that half the work is done.

You can launch other products as well, in a similar manner, making your workflow move along a little smoother.

October 14, 2019