Redgate Blog

Posts by
Phil Factor

Phil Factor (real name withheld to protect the guilty), aka Database Mole, has 30 years of experience with database-intensive applications. Despite having once been shouted at by a furious Bill Gates at an exhibition in the early 1980s, he has remained resolutely anonymous throughout his career. He is a regular contributor to <strong><a href="http://www.simple-talk.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Simple Talk</a></strong> and <strong><a href="http://www.sqlservercentral.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">SQLServerCentral</a></strong>.

4 July 2019

4 July 2019

Simple SQL Change Automation Scripting: Connections, iProjects and Builds

Phil Factor delves into some of SQL Change Automation's data objects, or artifacts, covering the DatabaseConnection, iProject and iBuildArtifact objects. He explains the useful information they contain and how to use them in a PowerShell-automated database delivery process. Read more

26 June 2019

26 June 2019

Problems Caused by Use of the SQL_VARIANT Datatype

Phil Factor illustrates the 'quirks' of the SQL_VARIANT datatype and why it's best to investigate when SQL Prompt alerts you to its use. It is only safe to store data as a SQL_VARIANT, if you explicitly convert it to its true type before you use it. Read more

17 June 2019

17 June 2019

The ‘= NULL’ Mistake and other SQL NULL Heresies

The SQL Prompt Best Practice rule checks whether a comparison or expression includes a NULL literal ('NULL'), which in SQL Server, rather than result in an error, will simply always produce a NULL result. Phil Factor explains how to avoid this, and other SQL NULL-related calamities. Read more

12 June 2019

12 June 2019

SQL Change Automation Scripting: Getting Data into a Target Database

Your strategy for loading a freshly built database with data will depend on how much you need. If just a few rows, then single-row INSERT statements will be fine, but for more than that you'll need to build insert the rows using native-format BCP. Fortunately, SQL Change Automation (SCA) can… Read more

31 May 2019

31 May 2019

Static Data and Database Builds

Whichever way you wish to ensure that a database, when built, has all the data that will enable it to function properly, there are reasonably simple ways of doing it. Phil Factor explains the alternatives. Read more

21 May 2019

21 May 2019

Simple Steps in SQL Change Automation Scripting

Phil Factor demonstrates the bare essentials of SCA PowerShell scripts that can form the basis for an automated process for database delivery or help improve your current process. Read more

13 May 2019

13 May 2019

Database Delivery with Docker and SQL Change Automation

Phil Factor demonstrates how to integrate SQL Change Automation into containerized workflows, such as are typical of a microservices architecture. He shows how to automate database builds into a Linux SQL Server container running on Windows, and then backup the containerized database and restore it into dedicated containerized development copies… Read more

7 May 2019

7 May 2019

Running Linux SQL Server as a Container

Phil Factor starts a series of articles that will demonstrate the use of temporary SQL Server instances, running in Linux containers, into which we can deploy the latest database build, stocked with data, for development and testing work. This initial article shows how to set up a SQL Server instance… Read more

30 April 2019

30 April 2019

SQL Clone on your Laptop

Phil Factor provides a PowerShell script to disconnect your laptop without risking error 21, if you're working with SQL Clone and need to go offline. The same script will then bring the clone database back online smoothly, once you're reconnected. Read more

23 April 2019

23 April 2019

Insert Statement Without Column List (BP004)

Many production databases have failed embarrassingly as a result of INSERT code that omits a column list, usually in mysterious ways and often without generating errors. Phil Factor demonstrates the problem, and advocates a 'defense-in-depth' approach to writing SQL, in order to avoid it. Read more