Voice of the DBA

Tag: Redgate

  • The Figleaf Data Masking Beta

    I’ve been using the Redgate Software Data Masker for SQL Server in a number of situations to help customers. This is a tool we purchased in 2017 and is a part of the SQL Provision bundle to make building safe, secure dev and test databases.

    Project Figleaf is the next version of our data masking product and you can help us make it better. There’s a beta out that you can download and play with. Our development team is conducting research to better understand how we can meet your data masking needs.

    As much as I like Data Masker, it’s a clunky, cumbersome tool that takes some getting used to working with. The UI is old, and at times, a bit of an impediment. It works well, and I’ve grown used to it, but we can do better, and we’re trying.

    If you work with sensitive information in your production systems, don’t bring that back to dev and test. Instead, give our new Figleaf beta a try and see if this is something that might be helpful to you. Or even download Data Masker and try that.

  • Updating VSTS to SQL Change Automation

    We (Redgate) released SQL Change Automation a few weeks back. This is the first stage to implementing a combined toolset that works with both state/comparison development and migrations based development. The change updated both our migrations toolset (previously ReadyRoll) and our build/release cmdlets (DLM Automation) to SQL Change Automation (SCA).

    I have pipelines that are setup with Redgate DLM Automation tasks. This post shows how I updated the first of these to SCA.

    Finding the Build

    Here’s my current VSTS build pipeline for a project. Note that these are DLM Automation 2 tasks. There is a single task that you configure with the Operation (on the right) to build, test, or sync a database.

    2018-06-28 16_56_49-SQL Server Builds - SOC-CI - Visual Studio Team Services

    Note that there is a version drop down at the top of the right side. Here I need to drop this down to find the SCA task, which is version 3.

    2018-06-28 16_58_05-SQL Server Builds - SOC-CI - Visual Studio Team Services

    Once I select this, you’ll see that my task changes to SCA, both on the left and right.

    2018-06-28 16_58_14-SQL Server Builds - SOC-CI - Visual Studio Team Services

    I can change both tasks to v3 and I’m set. This is really the change that we’ve done, and we’ve combined operations. If you drop this down you will see there are SCA (migrations) projects here along with SQL Source Control state projects.

    2018-06-28 16_59_28-SQL Server Builds - SOC-CI - Visual Studio Team Services

    This means that if I convert from a SQL Source Control/state project, my pipeline stays intact. I’ll just change the operation from a build with SQL Source Control to one with SCA.

    This mostly works, but there are some path differences for release, so I’ll talk about those in another post.

    This is a simple change, but it’s important for future strategy. You can watch a bit of our strategy in this SQL in the City video on the database deployment pipeline. If you want to give this a try, download SQL Source Control and/or SQL Change Automation and start a test project.

  • Building Better Test Data on the Redgate Hub

    I have a new piece published over at the Redgate Hub: Building Better Test Data with SQL Provision. Part of my job is helping people learn to use our products better, and provide not only solutions to issues, but also ideas that might help them think about new ways to use products.

    I’m a big believer in testing and having good test cases in your data. This piece gives a technique I’ve used in the past to ensure we test everything we need.

  • Updating to SQL Change Automation

    The SQL Change Automation release was early this week.  This is replacing ReadyRoll and our DLM Automation products, rolling them into a single product and is the first stage of unifying our state and migration based solutions.

    When I logged into Visual Studio and checked updates this week, I found a new item:

    2018-06-20 16_45_32-Extensions and Updates

    I selected this for upgrade, which replaces my ReadyRoll installation. Once I did this, it downloaded and I had to exit Visual Studio. That triggers the install.

    2018-06-20 16_47_12-VSIX Installer

    It’s a painless process, and when complete, I see the change in my projects.

    2018-06-20 17_08_14-New Project

    This works the same as the old ReadyRoll system, though there have been lots of updates to the product this year. The setup is a little better, giving you some help getting started. We have the obligatory welcome screen:

    2018-06-20 17_09_16-

    But after this, we help you understand a bit about what to configure. The next screen lets you see there is a development and deployment target that are needed, and these are used to try and ensure you realize you’re building a flow here.

    2018-06-20 17_09_22-

    There’s more work to be done, and certainly more information I can provide. Look for me to build some PoC type projects here soon to help you learn to get started.