Voice of the DBA

Tag: Redgate

  • SQL Clone, Redgate Licensing, and Cookies

    SQL Clone is amazing, and it can really save time and disk space for many organizations. I’ve got a series posted here on various little things I’ve learned about the product. There are also a number of articles on the Redgate Community Hub.

    SQL Clone is a fantastic tool from Redgate for building new databases quickly for development and test environments. I like using it, but ran into a little issue the other day.

    I was running a few tests with installation and got an error, but one that I wasn’t expecting. This isn’t a SQL Clone issue, but rather a Redgate client issue for our new licensing. As soon as I went to configure SQL Clone, I got a pop up to log in with my Redgate ID. I like this overall as I can manage licenses and move to machines if needed. However, in this case I got an error.

    2017-09-20 11_13_13-SQLProd - VMware Workstation

    I have Chrome as the default browser here, cookies are enabled. I hate IE, but apparently we use the IE control. Someone suggested disabling the IE Enhanced Security  Configuration. A quick search showed me how to do this.

    I ran Server Manager, and for the local server, you can click the “On” for IE Enhanced Security.

    2017-09-20 11_13_34-SQLProd - VMware Workstation

    This gives you a small dialog. I set this off for administrators.

    2017-09-20 11_13_40-SQLProd - VMware Workstation

    NOTE: This can be dangerous. In general, you don’t want to just download things on servers. That’s how we get all sorts of issues. There are times you need this, so disable the control, get something, and set it back on.

    Once I did that, I could log in and move on to other licensing. In this case, leaving a trial running as I test other things.

    2017-09-20 11_14_44-SQLProd - VMware Workstation

  • How Mature are you in Database DevOps?

    I remember seeing the Carnegie Mellon Software Capability  Maturity Model (CMM) when I was in university. It was fascinating, and I was sure this was the way to write software. Across many jobs and many years, I realized that few organizations even try to become more efficient and capable in how they write software.

    That’s changed a bit in the last 4-5 years as more organizations try to move to DevOps and become better at building software. Some do well, some just want to build software faster and not change the way they work.

    In any case, Redgate has built a maturity model for Database DevOps. You can take the assessment now in a few areas and get an idea how you stack up against other companies.

    Benchmark Your Database DevOps maturity level today

  • What’s a SQL Compare Snapshot?

    SQL Compare is a core product from Redgate and I’ve got a series on some of the interesting things I’ve found. Download a trial today if you haven’t tried it.

     

    I saw a short video from Grant Fritchey on the Redgate channel that shows how to cerate a snapshot in SQL Compare. I think snapshots are great, and there are lots of uses (more on that later), but I do find sometimes I use the term and people are confused.

    Snapshots

    This is one of those overloaded terms. We have SAN snapshots, backup snapshots, database snapshots, and more that many of us deal with. All of these really mean a point in time view of that particular data set (image, machine, disk, database, etc.).

    In SQL Server, we’ve had DB snapshots, which create a second database that is a copy as of a point in time of the original There are lots of restrictions on these, but they are useful for quick rollbacks during deployments, or point in time reporting, etc. Useful little creatures.

    SQL Compare Snapshots

    Many of you know SQL Compare as a tool that looks at two databases, gives you the differences in all objects, allows filtering, and also builds a deployment script to make the target database, DatabaseB, look like the source database, DatabaseA. In other words, if I add a table and view to the Source, and compare this with a destination, I’d see the new table and view as differences that I need to deploy.

    That’s great when working with databases, however sometimes I don’t have control over a database and can’t be sure that it has a stable codebase (no changes). SQL Compare snapshots let me copy over the state of the database into a folder.

    If I grab a random database and make a snapshot, the database looks like this:

    2017-09-14 18_22_31-SQLQuery1.sql - (local)_SQL2016.sandbox (PLATO_Steve (72))_ - Microsoft SQL Serv

    and the snapshot looks like this:

    2017-09-14 18_23_24-Snapshots

    Not quite the same. However, all the code is in the snapshot. It’s a binary file with all the code. If I use this as a target in SQL Compare:

    2017-09-14 18_24_14-New project_

    I’ll see this if I haven’t changed the database.

    2017-09-14 18_25_17-SQL Compare - New project_

    Why Use Snapshots?

    One of the main reasons I like to use snapshots is there are a stable view of code, like a tag or branch in a VCS, but they aren’t modified after created. They are a great way for me to capture the state of my code after a deployment (or before).

    Later I can compare my snapshot with the database and detect changes. This is great for detecting production drift where someone might change production and I’m unaware.

    I’m sure you could come up with other uses for a point in time view of your code.

  • Multi Script Removes 25 Database Limit

    I woke up to a Slack message that alerted me to a post in one of our channels. An engineer noted that SQL Multi Script was being upgraded today, releasing to all channels with v 1.3.3. The post alerted me to not the release, but the fact that the 25 database limit (for parallel execution) has been removed.

    Woot!!!

    That’s one I’ve been asking for across quite a few years. We don’t have a lot of Multi Script customers, but there are still quite a few and across time, I’ve had many of them ask me to remove the limit.

    Some have 30, 40, 50, 100 separate servers on which they want to run a query. Some have hundreds of databases on which they need to deploy the same code. All of them have struggled a bit with the need to run Multi Script many times to reach all their databases, with no good reason as hardware has improved and many of them have 16 GB of RAM. Back in 2007, when Multi Script was first released, most people likely had 2 or 4GB, and much slower CPUs.

    With my advocacy, and a few salespeople, plus some reorganization internally, we were finally able to press the engineers to dig into this code and remove the limit. This is good news for customers. It’s also good to have

    If you’ve never tried SQL Multi Script, give it a go. It’s a handy tool that I think is much better than a CMS. If you own a SQL Toolbelt license, you have Multi Script. If you don’t, grab a trial and see how this might help you.