Voice of the DBA

Tag: syndicated

  • The Developer’s Guide to Azure–A Good Overview

    Someone sent me a link a few weeks back  about a free book from Microsoft. It’s the Developer’s Guide to Azure, and you can download it in Kindle or other formats. I actually got it for the Kindle on my phone and went through it in my spare time during the last couple weeks.

    dev-guide-cover

    The book is a typical overview e-book, similar to what I’ve found in other areas from Microsoft. It’s very high level, with some examples and code, but very limited in scope and coverage.

    What I did like about the book is that it really describes all of the different services that Azure offers at this time, with some examples of how you might think about them. There were a few services I hadn’t heard of, so this gave me a tiny bit of insight into what they are and why they might be useful for me.

    If you haven’t spent a lot of time looking at Azure and keeping up with the advancements, you might pick up this book as a good general guide that will help you think about which areas you need to focus more attention, read about, or even build a PoC.

    I was especially interested in the security section, as I haven’t done much myself with Azure Active Directory and I wasn’t aware of all the services that exist.

    The book ends with a nice walkthrough of setting up some different services and configuring them. I haven’t completed these, but I might go through some and even work these into presentations, as I think Azure has a lot to offer that I could use in an environment I can access from anywhere.

  • Redgate Releases Sept 2018–Practicing DevOps

    At Redgate, we build tools to help you build software in the entire DevOps cycle. In fact, I love this new graphic that shows the areas that we focus on in the entire software development cycle.

    We don’t just preach DevOps, we live it. As an example, here are the releases for September:

    SQL Monitor (Sept 11, 20) – New viewing and reporting options

    SQL Clone (Sept 11, 24, 25) – Added reset, new notifications and an EAP of the  next version!!!!

    Data Masker/Figleaf – Sept 5, 14, 25, 26 – Bug fixes for Data Masker and enhancements to Figleaf

    SQL Change Automation – Sept 19 – cmdlet updates and bug fixes

    SQL Backup – Sept 6 – import registered servers

    SQL Compare/Data Compare – Sept 3, 17, 24 – bug fixes in frequent updates releases

    SQL Prompt – Sept 12, 25 – refactor insert into updates, bug fixes

    SQL Source Control – Sept 24 – bug fixes

    SQL Test – Sept 4 – bug fixes

    SQL Index Manager – Sept 3 – bug fixes

  • Understanding a UK Keyboard for a US developer

    One of the very interesting parts of my job is that I run into UK keyboards on a regular basis. Redgate is a UK company and most of the trade show laptops that they bring to events are UK layouts. Our VMs are built in the UK, and when I use one of those, I need to remember that some of the keys are different.

    I needed to learn the difference between the layouts, because when you’re in a hurry, you can’t scan the keyboard. I found a nice visualization and summary on Wikipedia. I’ve used that a few times, and with Kendra starting as a new Redgate evangelist, I scanned it again. I haven’t worked on a UK keyboard in a few months, so I want to highlight the differences in my memory for upcoming conferences.

    For me, the main differences I need to remember are the at symbol (@ ) and quotes (“) are switched. That means for logging in with emails, I need to smoothly use what I know as quotes for the @. I rarely use quotes, so this isn’t an issue.

    I do use the $ at times, and there isn’t a good way to get this without messing around. The same thing for the hash or pound (#) key. If I really need those, I often just end up changing the keyboard layout.

  • Off to #SQLSat Pittsburgh

    I’ve never been to Pittsburgh. Actually, in all of my speaking and traveling, I don’t think I’ve even flown through the airport. I’ve been wanting to rectify this, and quite a few friends, like Bill and Konstantine, have been asking me to come for years. The timing hasn’t worked out with other events in the past, but this year I kept the weekend free and was accepted to speak.

    If you’re in the area on Saturday, register and come to SQL Saturday #770. It’s at the Pittsburgh Technical College and there’s a great schedule of speakers and sessions to see.  The event is free, though there is a lunch charge.

    I’ll be delivering my popular branding session along with a Database DevOps talk. Hope to see you there.