Voice of the DBA

Tag: speaking

  • Learning Continuous Integration for Databases – LA Apr 10

    I’ve been talking about continuous integration for databases for a couple years now as a part of my job. My employer, Red Gate Software, has been building tools to help database developers build better software. We (Red Gate) want to sell software, but we also really want to help people build better software. It’s a big reason why I’m employed there. Red Gate truly wants to make the world a better place while we run a business.

    I’ve gotten lots of interest and questions from my one hour talk and late last year Red Gate decided we needed to do more. We built some all day continuous delivery classes last year and they went over well. Over the winter, Grant, myself, and a few others at Red Gate got together and we’ve been working on adding depth to our instruction and have come up with 3 full days of training to help you build better database software, quicker.

    Continuous Integration in LA

    The middle class we’ve developed is an all day look at how you implement a continuous integration process with a database and application. On April 10, 2015, I’ll be coming to Los Angeles, CA, along with one of our partners, Ike Ellis, to work on a full day of training. It’s a $500 class, but you’ll walk through a couple of different ways to set up a CI process, actually perform the steps yourself, and make changes to the database that get built and tested.

    We think it’s a great way to smooth out your development process and bring more engineering to the way you deploy database updates. Ike is an expert SQL Server consultant and he’ll show you how to create your own CI process. I’ll be in the background to help out, and we think you’ll gain some in depth knowledge that you can use at your job right away.

    If you want to advance your database development, register today and join us in LA on April 10, 2015.

    register

    I’m excited to be a part of these classes, and I hope you are as well.

    We do cover a number of Red Gate tools in the classes, but the procedures and steps are applicable to other methods of accomplishing the same tasks. Even if you choose to use other tools, or write your own, the skills we teach you will be applicable.

    I wouldn’t write my own, however. I’d easily burn the cost of the tools many times over trying to iron out the bugs in my own process.

    The Continuous Delivery Process

    The whole idea of continuous delivery is that you can make changes at anytime. It isn’t sloppy work, untested development, or anything else. This is a way to bring more engineering to software development, and I really believe in it.

    It’s not easy, however, and that’s why we’ve built three days of training. We cover these items in the three days.

    • Day 1 – Version Control for Databases
    • Day 2 – Continuous Integration for Databases
    • Day 3 – Automated Deployment

    We haven’t set these up all in one week, mainly because it’s too much information for you at once. Ideally we want to tour around, running one of these classes each quarter, because it will take you a few months to implement the information and understand it.

    If you get past these courses, we’re also partnering with expert ALM consultancy shops that can help you even more.

    We’ve got a number of all day events coming up for you to consider, so check out our list of training days. We’re adding more all the time, and let us know if you want us to come to your area.

  • The SQL Bits Schedule

    I’ll be speaking this week at SQL Bits XIV in London. I’ve got two sessions, and please feel free to come watch if you’re interested. Here are my topics and times:

    • Thursday, Mar 5, 2014: Branding Yourself for a Dream Job, 4:00pm-5:00pm
    • Friday, Mar 6, 2015: Get Testing with tSQLt, 5:00pm-6:00pm

    I usually wander into sessions as I have time, but I do like to look over the schedule and see if there is anything interesting I want to see. I’ll arrive Thur morning and then have Friday and Saturday as well at the event.

    I have a wide variety of interests, though I’m leaning more towards development practices lately. I don’t see much on Thursday that interests me, or that I haven’t seen already. I may wander in and out of talks to see what strikes my interest.

    Friday

    The Developer Side of Monitoring looks interesting to me. I tend to use SQL Monitor, but it would be good to know if there are things I might do to extend how we use Monitor in our environment.

    Lessons learned from the cloud might be interesting as well. I can’t decide if I think the cloud is great, or a mess. Perhaps I’ll get something from this one. I also will try to see either Temporal Databases or Deep into Isolation Levels. I met Boris last month in Germany, so I would like to see him speak.

    Saturday

    No speaking for me Saturday, which means the chance to meet people and also wander around. There is another tSQLt talk in the morning, so I’ll go see if I can learn something from someone else doing database testing.

    I’d like to learn more about Columnstore and Parameter sniffing, so those talks are on my list. I do like to see how people scale systems, and Bob Duffy is entertaining, so I might go catch part of his DVD Store talk. I’ll probably duck out early, because CI is a good topic for me and there’s one on CI for SSRS.

    The afternoon will probably have me a bit worn out, but I’d like to see an FTS session with Dejan or maybe I’ll critique Reeves in his Biml talk. I’m not sure if I’ll catch any of the last sessions, though lightning talks can be fun, so maybe I’ll wander in there before I head to the airport.

    Quick Trip

    Three days at Bits, a first for me, though I’ll be coming and leaving right away. I’m off to Dublin for a couple talks next week.

  • 10 days, 3 cities, 4 talks, 6 flights and 6 hotels

    I’m off today for Europe, on the longest trip I’ve taken for Red Gate. It’s stretching me a bit, but it should be fun. It will be a whirlwind as well. I’m flying to London (2 flights) and then driving to Cambridge for a couple days (1 hotel) at the Red Gate office. Then I head back down to London on a bus for SQL Bits (3 days, 2 hotels).

    On Saturday, I return to Heathrow (1 hotel) as I have an early Sunday flight (1 plane) to Dublin. There I get a day off, and I booked my hotel (1 hotel) near some of Dublin’s sights. I’m hoping for good weather to rent a bike and wander around. It’s only one day, and them I move (1 hotel) near the DLM Workshop seminar that I’ll be delivering in Dublin on Tuesday, along with a visit to the user group there.

    Then I head back to London (1 flight) early Wednesday morning, changing planes and heading back to the US (2 flights) and home.

    It’s a bit of a crazy trip, and with my costume for the event at SQL Bits, I’ll be checking a larger bag than I ‘m usually do.

    I’m looking forward to it, and while I’m sure I’ll be tired, it will be great to see so many #sqlfamily in the UK.

  • DLM Workshops

    We’ve got a bunch of DLM workshops coming up in the next few months from Red Gate Software. We’ve been working on trying to bring some depth to our education, helping DBAs and developers learn how to built smoother software development pipelines for their databases.

    The list of workshops is at http://www.red-gate.com/training/workshops/ and we’ll be updating it throughout the year. In this series, I’ll be at these events

    • Mar 10 – Dublin
    • Apr 10 – LA

    Certainly more are coming later in the year that I’ll deliver or help out at.

    We’ve built a series of three days of in depth instruction, each one building on the next. Our hope is to help you move through the subjects. Right now the days are covering these topics.

    • Version Control for Databases
    • Continuous Integration
    • Automating Deployments

    We are looking to try and schedule these over time in a city, so that you’ll be able to learn about VCS for databases, then come back in 3-4 months and take the next step to CI. We might do all three days consecutively, but it’s a lot to learn and cover, and I’d really hope that companies would learn one area, implement it, and then come back to learn the next step.

    If you have requests for dates or cities, or even private instruction, let us know. We’re growing a list of partners as well because Grant and I can’t be everywhere, so we hope to be able to help more people learn ways to build software smoother and quicker.