Grant Fritchey - Page 3 of 116 - Intimidating Databases and Code

21Aug 2019 by Grant Fritchey 7 Comments

DevOps for the DBA, Slide Deck

I have an all day seminar I give called "DevOps for the DBA". If you're attending, thinking of attending, or you have attended, you might want to have the slide deck to review. I have published it here at SlideShare.Net. Fair warning. The slides are not the presentation. When you're attending a class that I teach, you're there for the live, in-person, interactive event of the training. The slides are not meant to be documentation. They are simply guideposts to keep me on track and to help illustrate certain points. If they are helpful to you, I'm happy to share. I just want you to know that reading through the slides can in no way be a substitute for actually showing up. If you would like to attend this seminar,…

19Aug 2019 by Grant Fritchey 1 Comment

How Do You Make DevOps Succeed?

DevOps

I love going to SQLSaturday events because I'm always asked questions that make me think. I was just at SQLSaturday Indianapolis (a great event, if you weren't there, you missed out). I was giving a session called "Extending DevOps to SQL Server" (which I'm giving this Saturday at SQLSaturday Providence). I was talking about the fact that I've been involved in successful DevOps implementations and I've been involved in failed DevOps implementations. The question that came up was, "What were the key differences between the failed and successful organizations?" Great Question. Management Buy-In I've seen attempts to implement DevOps strictly from the IT side of things. A relatively high functioning team recognizes the benefits an agile approach that's oriented towards improved collaboration between people that uses automation in support of…

19Aug 2019 by Grant Fritchey 18 Comments

Profiler and Trace vs. Extended Events

SQL Server

It's a running joke among the more experienced (read, older) Microsoft Data Platform specialists as to whether you're #teamprofiler or #teamexevents. I'm very much #teamexevents, but I really don't care that you're #teamprofiler. If you want to use the old way of doing things, that's fine. However, I do have a bone to pick. Why on earth would you recommend to new data professionals working on modern systems, let's say at least 2016 or better, who are just getting going on this journey, that they should be using Trace? What are you smoking? Trace vs. Extended Events We're not just talking about where you are comfortable. I get it. You've used Trace/Profiler for 20+ years. Getting it going is all muscle memory. That's fine. As the kids say, you do…

12Aug 2019 by Grant Fritchey 6 Comments

Announcing a New Book: Query Store for SQL Server 2019

SQL Server

I'm pleased as punch to be able to share with you the fact that I helped Tracy Boggiano write a whole new book on Query Store. It will be available in October. You can pre-order it now. Tracy is a great author and a serious scholar of SQL Server. She's put together an excellent resource on Query Store. I added a couple of chapters just to help her out, but this is truly her book. Query Store is incredibly simple to use. It is however a bear to manage, so getting Tracy's book is a must if you're going to be implementing Query Store on your databases. By the way, you really should be implementing Query Store on your databases. Tracy covers all the topics from reporting with Query Store,…

07Aug 2019 by Grant Fritchey 4 Comments

All Day Seminar on DevOps in Oslo

DevOps

In just a couple of weeks, I'll be presenting an all day session on DevOps for databases. It takes place on Friday, August 30th. You can click here now to get signed up. I have a very hard time hiding just how excited I get about DevOps. It's not just that the technology is fun. It is. It's not just that it makes for a happier work environment. It does. It's not because by using DevOps you can deliver more quality functionality, faster, for your organization. You can. No, the reason I love DevOps, as a DBA, is because it creates added protections for my production environment and my production data. You can think of the entire DevOps process as another backup, another consistency check, one more enforced referential constraint.…

05Aug 2019 by Grant Fritchey 4 Comments

Running Containers In a Virtual Machine

Containers

The more you work with containers, the more you just want to work with containers. However, there are still reasons to have a virtual machine for some types of workloads. So, what if you want to work with containers inside a virtual machine. Is that possible? Yes, and shockingly easily. Enable Virtualization In Virtualization I knew from conversations I've had previously that running Docker inside a virtual machine was possible. I just didn't know the details. So, with a complete lack of knowledge, I did the most expedient thing possible: I installed Docker in a VM and started it up. Now, let's talk about my setup for a moment. My laptop is running HyperV as my hypervisor. You have to have some type of hypervisor for Docker to work. I'm…

01Aug 2019 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

Teaching DevOps in Indianapolis

Uncategorized

There is literally nothing I like better than working on automation. Before we had all the cool toys that we have now, I was working on automating database deployments. Now, with all the cool toys, I'm not automating deployments. I'm automating builds, tests, environment setup, containers, multiple database platforms and more. If you want to learn about DevOps, source control, tools, automation, artifacts, testing and more, I've got an opportunity for you. In just a couple of weeks, on Friday, June 16th, 2019, I'll be teaching an all day seminar on database DevOps. There are some seats left, but don't wait until it's too late. Click here now to get signed up. This is the only time this year that I'll be presenting this course in the United States. If…

29Jul 2019 by Grant Fritchey 4 Comments

Sample Azure DevOps Pipelines

DevOps

I've said it before and I will repeat myself on this because it's an important concept: DevOps is about culture and communication, not tools Now, that said, to implement the automation required in DevOps, you're going to have to get into some degree of tooling. There are a whole slew of possible tools to support you: Jenkins, Team City, Octopus and more. All these tools offer excellent solutions with variations on limits, methodologies, etc. You'll need to explore them to understand which ones are best for you and your processes. I've been doing a lot of work lately in another tool, Azure DevOps. Let me show you a little of what I've done. Azure DevOps Pipelines I don't mean for this to be a complete tutorial on setting up Azure…

22Jul 2019 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

Importance of Testing

DevOps

I've always said if you're running a script for the first time in a production environment, you're doing it wrong. Testing is fundamental to technology, yet it is one of the single most frequently skipped processes. Let's talk about this a moment. Developing in Production Through my work, I travel quite a bit. That means I get to meet a lot of different people with varying circumstances on their systems. I've even met someone who did all their development directly in production. Why? They ran a software that ran an assembly line. There wasn't a test assembly line. Oh yeah, they had checks and validations that all their inputs and outputs were valid prior to ever putting the code into production. However, they had no mechanisms, of any kind, for…

15Jul 2019 by Grant Fritchey 7 Comments

Implement DevOps One Step At a Time

DevOps

In preparation for my upcoming DevOps training days (see the bottom of this post for details) and for some articles I'm working on, I've been building all new automation processes for database deployments. In the past, I've been using a fairly simple (and far too simplistic) example to do most of my demos. I haven't built a full process in a little while. OH MY GOD!!! IT'S PAINFUL!!!!! Automation Ain't Easy The easy part of getting your DevOps done is the tooling. I say that all the time because it's true. The hard part is changing your organizations culture to support the level of communication necessary for a successful DevOps implementation. However, easy by comparison doesn't mean just simply easy. There's a lot of work involved and making mistakes early…