Voice of the DBA

Tag: syndicated

T-SQL Tuesday #167 – Encryption and Data Protection
I missed September since I was gone half the month in Europe and busy with a roadshow.

And, I missed October, since I was busy this month and lost track of this during my travels. However, I can still write, and I love the invitation from Matthew McGiffen. It’s on Encryption and Data Protection, two things I care about and about which I’ve delivered a few presentations.

As always, T-SQL Tuesday is a monthly blog party where you can write on a particular topic. It’s a great way to stimulate some learning and writing, but it’s also something you can catch up on later. I’ll likely write something on #166 in the future.

If you want to host, send me your interest on Twitter (@way0utwest), LinkedIn (/in/way0utwest), or email (sjones using the sqlservercentral domain).

Protecting Encrypted Data

One of the things I deal with regularly is how do you deal with encryption in your software pipeline. There are two concerns here:
1. How do we deploy encryption keys to production from development?
2. How do we refresh development environments with encrypted data?
It should go without saying, but I’ll say it. You can’t use the same keys in development and production because most auditors and regulatory authorities won’t see this as secure. If you have really secured development, and you are bonding developers, them maybe, but most of the time you need different keys/certificates/etc. in production than development.

This means you can’t have the key definitions (SQL Server) or asymmetric key files/certificates in version control. That makes deployment a challenge.

What I usually recommend here is that you have a separate pipeline for privileged, DBA, users who can store some of this in a separate repository and secure that.

At the same time, how do we get this data down to dev? Honestly, I wouldn’t. I’d let it come down encrypted, without the keys (those can be deleted as part of the refresh) and then add in known, secure, PII data with a dev key. The mechanics here get complex, but suffice it to say that protecting keys and keeping them out of dev is important.
October 25, 2023
Deleting a Git Branch–#SQLNewBlogger
I had someone ask me recently about deleting branches. While I had known how to delete a local branch, I had to look up how to delete a remote one. Documenting these both will hopefully help me remember this.

Another post for me that is simple and hopefully serves as an example for people trying to get blogging as #SQLNewBloggers.

Deleting Branches

Most parameters have something do to with the action, and most people might guess a –d is used to delete a branch in Git. The actual syntax for a branch named “Feature123” is:

git branch –d Feature123

You can also use a –D, though be aware that –D is the same as –d with the –force option. The –d actually aliases to –delete, so you have three options:
- -d
- –delete
- -D (this will run –-force)
To delete a remote branch, you can use (with v1.7+)

git push origin –-delete Feature123

where origin is the remote name and Feature123 is the branch. This is better than the old syntax, and you ought to keep your git up to date.

You can see this working for one of my branches below:

Git docs for branch have more details.

Use this to clean up branches if your changes are merged and you don’t need to send in any more PRs for this branch.

SQL New Blogger

This is a simple thing, but one that I don’t do often, so I wrote this as much to document it for myself as to put this out there as a piece of knowledge. If someone reads this post and asks the question in an interview, it’s likely an easy one for me to give.

You can do this, help showcase your career knowledge and control the interview. This piece took me about 8 minutes to write. You could do your own version of this topic.
October 23, 2023
The Year in Travel
Here’s my year, which is pre-populated with a couple more trips coming up in November. Those should be all, as I’ve declined to go back to the UK in December and am hoping to lay low a bit. These are the trips I’ve taken, plotted against distance from home.

A lot of similar trips. I had repeats that were:
- London – 3 times
- Las Vegas – 3 times
- Chicago – 3 times
- Austin – 3 times
- Boston – 2 times
- Syracuse – 2 times
- Florida – 3 times (JAX, Orlando, Miami)
- St Louis – 2 times
- Dallas – 2 times
The big trip was Alaska, which was my wife’s 50th state. I think it was 46 or so for me. I know I’m missing Maine, Arkansas, Iowa, probably one more I can’t think of right now. I’ve spent the night in all other states.

I have (I think) a total of 30 airplane trips away from Denver. The actual flights are more like 70 with some connections. I spent 100 nights away from home, though some of those were in the mountains or camping. Or in airplanes. I probably spent 3 nights on airplanes this year.

That’s a lot. A long year for me, and I’m likely to avoid some travel until March or April, so hopefully I can recharge over the winter and relax at home.
October 20, 2023
A New Word: Gobo

gobo – n. the delerium of having spent all day in an aesthetic frame of mind, taking photos across the city, getting lost in an art museum – which infuses the world with an aura of meaning, until every crack in the wall becomes a commitment to naturalism, and every rainbow swirling in a puddle feels like a choice.

I wish I could get lost in an art museum, but it’s not my thing. I can enjoy them for a bit, and I like having various Van Gogh paintings as a part of my wallpaper, but only for a bit. I do, however, enjoy spending a few hours wandering a city, taking pictures, and enjoying the world for what it is. My wife and I do this more often than hitting tourist attractions when we travel. Instead enjoying life in another place as it exists during a normal day for many others.

I do try to stop and enjoy the world I see, big things and small, as I go through life. I rarely spend all day doing anything, but I do enjoy the moments when I can.

From the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

October 20, 2023