Voice of the DBA

Tag: Redgate

  • Discussing Database DevOps with Gene Kim

    I’m really excited for this webinar. Register today for the Sept 25 webinar  to learn more about the 2018 State of DevOps report.

    I read The Phoenix Project a few years back and I’ve been following Gene Kim as one of the main researchers and advocates of DevOps ever since. I think his work is amazing and I’ve enjoyed watching him present online during conferences and webinars. I never thought I would get the chance to talk one on one, much less host a webinar.

    This year’s State of DevOps report, from DevOps Research and Assessment (DORA), sponsored by Google Cloud, is near and dear to my heart. For the first time, there is a section on databases. Redgate helped sponsor the report as well and was able to get Gene Kim to do a webinar to discuss the entire report, but with a focus on databases.

    At least, that’s my focus. I’ll get the chance to ask Gene questions as well, mostly focused on the data aspect of software delivery, which I think is too often left out. Too many software developers are worried about the database and haven’t included it in the their DevOps world. That’s changing, and join me to see how.

    Don’t forget to register and I’ll see you on the 25th.

  • Custom Data Purging in SQL Monitor

    In talking to a customer recently, they were worried about the amount of data kept by SQL Monitor. That’s a fair concern as monitoring a large number of servers can result in lots of data.

    As an aside, data management is one of the reasons that I’d always want to buy a monitoring tool from a vendor. Most people don’t get this right and it’s a pain to deal with. I’d like you to look at SQL Monitor, but if it doesn’t work for you, look at our competitors. More people need monitoring on their systems.

    In any case, this customer wanted to ensure some data was removed, but not other data. Their concern was that things like performance data or storage data might be needed for a long time while alert data or top queries might not. In other words, customized data management is needed.

    I posted the suggestion in the SQL Monitor Slack channel, asking the developers if they were considering it. In about 5-10 minutes, I got this link: https://monitor.red-gate.com/Configuration/Purging

     2018-08-23 12_15_16-Configuration _ Data purging

    Shazam! They’d already done it.

    Actually, they’ve released this to frequent updaters, but in an upcoming release, this will be the default. You’ll be able to customize how long you want to keep each kind of data. Not by machine (yet), but if you need that, let us know.

    SQL Monitor continues to amaze me with their progress. If you want to get an idea of how it works, check out monitor.red-gate.com, our demo site, where we monitor some real servers at Redgate, including the SQLServerCentral database instances.

    And if you want it in your enterprise, download a trial today.

  • Next week is SQL in the City Streamed

    This picture is out of date. I’ll make sure we get a new one next week at SQL in the City Streamed that includes Kendra Little.

    IMG_2469

    On Sept 5th, is SQL in the City Streamed. Register today and watch us talk about Azure, Machine Learning, full stack development, and more. We’ll talk a little Redgate as well.

    sitc-201809-social-grant (1)

    I’m off today to Norway for SQL Saturday Oslo, but I’ll also be prepping for SQL in the City Streamed. Hope to see you online.

  • Redgate Lives DevOps

    At Redgate, we release a lot of changes to our products. In fact, this is the “About Redgate” slide I’ve been using in talks related to the company.

    2018-08-23 09_36_29-ReduceAttackSurfaceArea.pptx - PowerPoint

    If you look in the lower right, you’ll see product releases from last year (2017). We have 30-ish products, so that’s roughly 38 releases per product. Not every product releases at this cadence, but a lot of them release every week. SLQ Monitor, for example, releases every Wednesday.

    Of course, there’s the inevitable release-a-bug-and-need-to-fix-it-so-a-second-release this week, but those don’t happen too often. I’ve been tracking releases this year, and not too many were corrected in the same week, but it does happen.

    Some people say that’s the problem with DevOps, but I think it’s the advantage. I guarantee that most software releases include bugs. If you release once a quarter, are you ready to re-release in a couple days to fix something? Or do customers live with issues for a quarter? The advantage of DevOps is we can fix things quickly, in addition to adding new features quickly.

    Redgate does some amazing development work and I’m proud of the ladies and gentleman that write the code.

    I still complain, and there’s room for improvement, but they do a great job and I try to remember to thank them and complement their work when I do see them.