Blogs

The Accelerate: State of DevOps Report 2019 has just been published. This report is the latest in six years of research. With more than 31,000 survey responses, Accelerate is the longest running study of DevOps in academia or industry. In the 2019 edition, research continues to show that DevOps drives business value: high performers at DevOps are “twice as likely to meet or exceed their organizational goals.” While this isn’t a new finding, it’s very important that this continues to be true: why invest in improving at DevOps if it doesn’t drive business value?

Azure DevOps: How to Set a Custom Release Branch Folder Filter in Build Pipeline Triggers (video)

in devops

August 19, 2019

This is the first in a series of posts about simple things that I had a hard time figuring out in Azure DevOps services.

It can be very useful to enable Continuous Integration for multiple folders in your DevOps pipeline – say, for every branch created under releases/ or features/. But configuring this can be strangely confusing!

SQL Server Management Studio is as Relevant as Ever

in sql, tech-community

August 14, 2019

Sometimes you keep a classic around.

How to Persuade Your Company to Change

in devops

July 19, 2019

Like a lot of developers and database administrators, I do a fair amount of short-term problem solving during the course of my normal work week.

Managing Cross-Database Dependencies in Builds (Redgate video)

in devops

June 25, 2019

Building your database code is an essential practice to ensure that it compiles from source and that dependencies are met. But things can get tricky when you have objects in some databases which is dependent upon objects in other databases – or even circular dependencies.

How Developers and DBAs Collaborate in a DevOps World (video)

in sql

June 13, 2019

You’re a DBA, and your development team is all-in on doing DevOps, and they want to include the database. Should your DBA team limit the permissions or options for automation? Or should you instead re-think how your two teams work together?

A letter to my 20 year-old self

in tech-community

June 11, 2019

This post is a part of #tsql2sday, a monthly community ritual where a topic is proposed by a community member and everyone is invited to join in. This month’s topic is from Mohammad Darab, who encouraged us to: “Write your 20 year old self a letter. If you could go back in time and give yourself advice, what would it be?” The advice I would give to my 20 year old self is the same advice I give to myself today, more than 20 years later:

DBAs: Stop Denying Sysadmin to Developers

in devops

May 30, 2019

I recent chatted with some folks who have a permissions problem in SQL Server. The permissions problem isn’t technical – it’s a process problem.

The best bit about SQL Saturdays: nearly everyone interacts with other people

in sql

May 21, 2019

Today I was looped in on an email thread about the pros and cons of attending a specific event. One person on the thread asked if any of us had attended the event in the past, and whether or not event attendees were engaged with presenters and vendor representatives.

My immediate thought was: of course the attendees were engaged, because the event is a SQL Saturday. I’ve never been to a SQL Saturday where the attendees weren’t engaged.

But, I realized that it’s a fair question.