Author: suxstellino (Alessandro Alpi)

http://alessandroalpi.blog

QA for Data

way0utwest's avatarVoice of the DBA

Here’s a typical DBA scenario. You’re at your desk, working on something, when you get a trouble ticket, phone call, or tap on your shoulder. There’s a problem in production and an order, or some other important piece of data, is incorrect. Can you fix it?

Many of us are happy to oblige. Often we know what needs to be changed and can write the INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE statement to correct the issue. Even if we have to dig in further, we can usually find the data in a table and determine what should be changed.

However, what do we do then?

If you are asked the make data changes to production, do you QA the script? Do you save the scripts in a VCS or a log? Does anyone else examine the data or code? Do you scan the script yourself, have SQL Server parse it, or bother to look for…

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Tracking Table Usage and Identifying Unused Objects

spaghettidba's avatarspaghettidba

One of the things I hate the most about “old” databases is the fact that unused tables are kept forever, because nobody knows whether they’re used or not. Sometimes it’s really hard to tell. Some databases are accessed by a huge number of applications, reports, ETL tools and God knows what else. In these cases, deciding whether you should drop a table or not is a tough call.

Search your codebase

The easiest way to know if a table is used, is to search the codebase for occurences of the table name. However, finding the table name in the code does not mean it is used: there are code branches that in turn are not used. Modern languages and development tools can help you identify unused methods and objects, but it’s not always feasible or 100% reliable (binary dependencies, scripts, dynamic code are, off top of my head, some exceptions).
On the…

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How do I get Java plugin working on Google Chrome? Re-Enabling Silverlight, Java and Facebook video!

Michael Denny's avatar.Net Diaries

Today me and probably the 3 billions of people trying using java applet on chrome has found that after the java upgrade, chrome was unable to run java applet anymore, this not because of java, but because of google that decided to drop/stop the support for NPAPI, that is a cross-platform architecture standard used by many browser to enable plugins/applet such as Silverlight, Java and Facebook Video. You can find more directly from java website “How do I use Java with the Google Chrome browser?” But there’s also a good news, you can re-enable it, by doing these steps:

  1. In your URL bar, enter:
  2. Click the enable link for the Enable NPAPI configuration option.
  3. Click the relaunch button that now appears at the bottom of the configuration page.

…and here we go!! God bless the configurations!

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A 2015 full of DLM

After SQL Saturday Pordenone, I’ll keep speaking about DLM (aka ALM on databases) during the following events:

PASS Italian Virtual Chapter, April 14. I’ll demonstrate the SQL source control usage on SQL Server database
PASS SQL Saturday Torino, May 23, I’ve proposed two sessions (source control and unit testing on database)
.Net Campus a Roma, May 30, I’ll speak about continuous integration with SQL Server (source control, unit testing, deploy).
There’s a lot of work to do. But I’m thinking now about two or three new sessions. I hope to finish them in the last months of the year, and I hope to meet you in one of  these events, at least online.
Stay tuned!

 

Accessing SQL Server data with Simple.Data

Recently Michael suggested me a lightweight framework for accessing and manipulating data with SQL Server. I’ve tried it and I’ve found some misunderstanding on the official documentation. The framework I’m speaking for is Simple.Data, a very user-friendly, simple-to-install, quick-to-apply, open and lightweight framework.

After some tests I’ve started to write down an article, that should be taken like a reference due to missing information on official documentation.

You can find it here (in italian).

Hope this helps!

Stay Tuned! 🙂

Interview with Kris Wenzel on EssentialSQL.com

EssentialSQL.com is a very useful resource for learning SQL Server.

As in the website homepage: “Now it is time to learn SQL in simple English.”
Kris would like to reach the following goals:
  • Get started in an easy to follow step-by-step manner.
  • Use reader’s time wisely (focusing on what is important to learn to get the most value from your time).
  • Answer the questions.
It’s an important contribute to the SQL Server community. Kris explains here why he’s started to write EssentialSQL.com.
I’ve found this interview very interesting. We’ve spoken about my favourite topics, like Source control on database and database unit testing. This is my job, everyday.
We’ve spoken also about worst practices I saw in my past experiences and then he asked me to give some suggestion to people who start to explore SQL Server.
Thus, if you have a couple of minutes, you can read my interview here.
Stay tuned! 🙂