Multiple Deployment Processes
Voice of the DBA
We had a Simple Talks podcast recently where we discussed roll forward vs roll back. You can and listen to our thoughts, but one interesting place was when we talked about deployments. Grant mentioned that he deployed from version control/source control at a previous employer. I asked him whether he did that for every system. His response: "Well, ..." He admitted that most, but not all, databases came from a controlled source. There were some systems that had a more ad hoc change process. I wonder how many of you have consistent processes throughout your organization. I suspect not many of...
info_outline
A Full Shutdown
Voice of the DBA
I have the opportunity to work with a variety of customers on their database systems, often with the focus on how they can build and deploy changes to their databases. Often, they have a process around how and when they make changes. Some have maintenance windows, though often these are approved times for changes rather than a true window during which a system is shut down. I ran into a customer recently who scheduled a system shutdown for their deployments. This was a surprise to me in 2026, as I thought most people would have learned to deploy changes to live systems. However, I know that...
info_outline
Not Just an Upgrade
Voice of the DBA
info_outline
Writing as an Art and a Job
Voice of the DBA
I remember listening to an interview with in the mid 2000s. He was the back page columnist for Sports Illustrated for years as well as a writer in various pieces. He talked about how he would lay on the couch in his office sometimes, trying to think of what to write. His kids would come in looking for attention, but couldn't understand that Dad was "working". I had been writing the editorials at SQL Server Central and I could relate. Moving from 2 to 5 (eventually 6) editorials a week was a lot of work. It was stressful in a way I couldn't imagine when I started writing them. I quickly...
info_outline
Rollback vs. Roll Forward
Voice of the DBA
The Advocates at Redgate Software had an interesting discussion about deployments in databases and how you go forward or back from the point at which you discover a problem. You can , but a few things occurred to me while we were having our discussion. The first thing is we all agree data makes things hard. A database is a stateful object, and dealing with stateful objects is hard. That is one of the things I’ve internalized the last few years that has tremendously changed how I work with Redgate customers. The more I consider state, the more I am able to work with the challenges that...
info_outline
Having a Little Fun at SQL Server Central
Voice of the DBA
info_outline
Testing is Becoming More Important
Voice of the DBA
Many of us know that testing our code is important. The adoption of unit testing by many software application developers as a normal course of business has dramatically improved the quality of applications. Mobile software, especially, has benefited from the requirement for most software to include, and constantly run, a suite of unit tests. For database software, I find relatively few organizations formally test their database code. A few people have adopted or the , but most don't bother. In fact, many queries that are embedded in application code, or built by ORMs, aren't tested beyond a...
info_outline
Can You Let Go of Determinism
Voice of the DBA
Why do we reboot machines when something goes wrong? I'm sure all have done it, and I would guess quite a few of you have found situations where this seems to fix issues, but there isn't an underlying root cause that you can pinpoint. This is a fairly accepted way of dealing with issues, but have you thought about why this is a way to solve some problems? The main thing that a reboot does is return the system to a know starting state. It's why quite a few people complain about some modern laptops and mobile devices because they avoid restarts and try to sleep/wake instead. Most software...
info_outline
Doing Good at SQL Server Central
Voice of the DBA
This is part of a few memories from the founders of SQL Server Central, celebrating 25 years of operation this month. We did photoshoots at Redgate many years ago. We had a bunch of props, including some phrases written down. We could create our own, but my handwriting is atrocious (likely why I never became an architect), but I ended up with this one: Read the rest of
info_outline
Engineer Lessons
Voice of the DBA
Many of you reading this have a number of years working with technology. You might have 1 year or 20 years, but you've likely grown and learned along the way. Some of you may also know someone who has several years of seniority in a position but not that many years of experience. In this case, a person might have been working at this job for 5 years, but they really have one year of experience that's been repeated 5 times. That's been a common complaint over quite a few years from people who interview others. They find candidates often have very limited experience, yet are applying for senior...
info_outlineI don't know how many of you will be disappointed or impacted by this, but Azure Data Studio (ADS) is being retired, as of 6 Feb, 2024. It will be supported for a little over a year, until 28 Feb, 2026. On one hand I'm not surprised, and on the other, I'm a little shocked by this.
I have written a number of articles on ADS, and shown how things work, as well as pointed out a number of things that don't work well in the product or its extensions. These pieces have gotten a number of reads, and people have commented on them, so I wonder if there are a lot of you that are upset by this. Is this going to change the way you work? I will say that it will lightly change my work, as I do use ADS to connect to PostgreSQL, but not so much for SQL Server.
Read the rest of The End of Azure Data Studio