Author: suxstellino (Alessandro Alpi)

http://alessandroalpi.blog

SQL Saturday in Verona!

This year I will speak at PASS SQL Saturday in Verona with a session based on database and source control management.

“PASS SQLSaturday’s are free 1-day training events for SQL Server professionals that focus on local speakers, 
providing a variety of high-quality technical sessions, and making it all happen through the efforts of volunteers. 
Whether you’re attending a SQLSaturday or thinking about hosting your own, we think you’ll find it’s a 
great way to spend a Saturday – or any day. “
I would like to share my experience in using Visual Studio and Red-Gate tools for database source control and continuous integration with TFService. So, I’ll wait for you all!
This is the speaker list and these are the event details.
Stay Tuned! 

Avoid nested INSERT EXEC (where possible)

Some days ago, I received a tedious error while executing a pipeline of nested stored procedures, which contains INSERT-EXEC statements. The issue is based on a SQL Server limitation, by design since SQL Server 2005. Actually, the INSERT-EXEC was supported in SQL Server 2000, but I’ve never tried that behavior on the older version. Let’s see the behavior. Continue reading “Avoid nested INSERT EXEC (where possible)” →

How to mark SQL Server objects as deprecated with extended properties

I want to share a “trick” on how to mark SQL Server user objects as deprecated. But first, why we need to mark an object as deprecated?

  • code refactors
  • object schema refactors
  • mandatory backward compatibility in a multi customer scenario
We can use extended properties. They are a set of name/value properties in which you can specify custom value, with your own naming convention. Every SQL Server object can be, let’s say, extended using those properties. There are also three stored procedures which you can use in order to manage extended properties:

SSMS Boost another cool addin for SQL Server Management Studio

During my SQL Devlife I tried lots of SQL Server management studio add-ins. Some days ago I tried SSMSBoost. Since I’ve already spoken about SSMSToolsPack and SQLPrompt, I’d like to focus this post on the capabilities that SSMSBoost adds to Sql Server Management Studio. I’ll speak about some of the available features, in the following order:

  • UI/User experience capabilities
  • Connections management
  • Searches
  • Extended menu options
  • Grid commands

Continue reading “SSMS Boost another cool addin for SQL Server Management Studio” →

How to share redgate database tools settings with Team Foundation Service

In a previous post we’ve seen how to share the SQL Prompt snippet folder to the development team. We’ve used dropbox for sharing and powershell to copy files between the default directory and the new place (changing also the related registry keys). In this post we’ll focus on how to share all the Red-Gate development tools using Team Foundation Server or Team Foundation Service for team sharing (TFService and TFS Express are two free solution).

The requirements are:
– at least a folder, that will be shared to all team members
– the tools must support the customization of the configuration folders
– a script (powershell in the following samples) that can change the configuration folders

Keep in mind that we’re talking about third party tools, plugged in to SQL Server Management Studio. We will speak about:

  • SQL Prompt snippets (we will change snippet folder)
  • SQL Compare filter and project files (we will change filter and project file startup folder, .scp and .scpf files)
  • SQL Data Compare project files (we will change project file startup folder, .sdc files)

We’ll use Team Foundation Service as a Source Control Manager Continue reading “How to share redgate database tools settings with Team Foundation Service” →