Voice of the DBA

Tag: syndicated

The Book of Redgate: Meetings

I think we might have forgotten this a bit, but on one of the pages, we have this title: A Meeting without an Objective is a Chat.

You can see it below, with a few funny things.

I don’t get too many meetings, at least not too often when I’m working remote. When I’m in the office, I’m usually there for meetings, and if I get 5, 6, or more a day, that’s fine.

I do think that most of the meetings I’m involved in (outside of sales) are worthwhile and helpful. They tend to focus on topics or work that needs collaboration in real time. There can be a few that get scheduled and aren’t needed, but I find lots of people quick to end meetings early and not trying to draw them out for the scheduled length.

I have a copy of the Book of Redgate from 2010. This was a book we produced internally about the company after 10 years in existence. At that time, I’d been there for about 3 years, and it was interesting to learn a some things about the company. This series of posts looks back at the Book of Redgate 15 years later.

August 29, 2025
A New Word: Rivener

rivener – n. a chilling hint of distance that creeps slowly into a relationship – beginning to notice them laugh a little less, look away a little more, explain away their mood like it’s no longer your business – as if you’re watching them fall out of love right in front of you, gradually and painfully, like a hole in the radiator that leaves your house a little colder with every passing day, whose only clue is a slow, unnerving drip-drip-drip.

This chapter of the book seems to be a bunch of feelings that people have earlier in relationships, or maybe during bad relationships.

I’m sure I’ve felt rivener in the past, from former girlfriends, but I’m blessed that this isn’t the case now. My wife loves me and I feel the same way. There’s no rivener on the ranch between us.

From the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

August 22, 2025
Adding SQL Server 2025 to my Laptop

I wanted to do some testing of SQL Server 2025 on my laptop. I have written before how I avoided installing SQL Server on the laptop and use containers instead. This post looks at adding a new version on the default port.

This page on MSLearn shows how to run the SQL Server 2025 container. I started here, when searching for “SQL Server 2025 container” on Google.

It was nice to see this updated for 2025, and if I scroll down, I can see the docker container to pull. This is the important thing for me to add a new version of SQL Server.

I could go to this URL to see all the tags, since I don’t want just latest. I want to know what version to run: https://mcr.microsoft.com/en-us/artifact/mar/mssql/server/tags

In this case, I want this tag: 2025-CTP2.1-ubuntu-22.04

Installing the New Version

If you read my previous article, I put a folder for each version on my system. In my case, I use c:\data. I’ll make a new folder for SQL 2025.

Note: I tried to copy this folder and subfolder and then delete files, but got permission errors on stratup. I made new folders and things worked.

Once in here, I’ll create sub folders for my mappings.

I will then copy over the docker-compose.yml file. In my case, I have all the 2022 stuff. I need to edit things.

\

Most things are fine here, but I’ll update the name and image. These need to use the 2025 values. Here are my edits.

I save this, and then I copy/paste the two stop/start batch files. I’ve opened these in code and changed 2022 to 2025. I’ll show one file below, but basically I change the CD command in both.

That’s it. If my SQL 2022 container that runs on the default port is stopped, I can double click the start2025.cmd file. Once I do that, I see the image coming down.

As soon as that completes, the container starts. I can connect with SSMS to the local host. Same as my 2022 instance, whose container is stopped.

Once I connect, I see the new, default, instance of SQL Server 2025.

I do have to remember to start/stop containers, but I love having multiple default instances

August 20, 2025
Monday Monitor Tips: Searching Procedures

A customer was asking about how to track all the stored procedures that execute on their system. We have a section in Redgate Monitor that’s set to look at stored procedures, and you can easily find information about them.

This is part of a series of posts on Redgate Monitor. Click to see the other posts.

Finding Stored Procedures

If I go to the SQLServerCentral_Test system on monitor.red-gate.com, I can scroll down and see the top queries for the time period selected. Here’s an example of a query. The main query window shows SQL, but these are parts of procs.

If I expand to the full query, we see this is part of a proc. That’s good, in that if the query causing problems is part of a procedure, I can track that down.

However, what if I know people are reporting a problem that is related to this proc. Can I find it knowing the name? I can’t in the Top Queries.

However, we’ve added a Top procedures item to the right. That’s the place to focus on if you use stored procedures. And you should, since they create a looser coupling between your schema and the various business things your app needs to do.

On this test system, there are relatively few procedures running, but on many systems in production, this is a large list of things. To the right (not shown) there are various metrics that help you determine which of these items might be stressing your system because of execution counts, duration, CPU, etc.

If I know I have a procedure, I can search using the box. Here, I’m searching for UserA, but you might be searching for FinanceReport, hoping to find which of the FinanceReport_A, FinanceReport_B, FinanceRepot_Prep, etc. procs is using resources.

Expanding any of these (clicking the arrow) gives you more detail, as you would get in the Top Queries section.

Summary

Tracking down which queries are stressing your system and why can be hard. We added the focus on procedures as this is an easier way for some customers to determine what part of their workload is causing issues. In the top queries, sometimes procedures get lost, so this section lets you drill down into how your system is performing.

Redgate Monitor is a world class monitoring solution for your database estate. Download a trial today and see how it can help you manage your estate more efficiently.

August 18, 2025