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 Simple Talk and SQLServerCentral.

Phil Factor

22 December 2022

Phil Factor

22 December 2022

Testing Databases: What’s Required?

An overview of the challenges of database testing and test data management, reviewing the different types of database test that need to run during development work, what sort of test data they require, and how to manage all the required data sets, during development, in a way that allows rapid cycles of parallel testing. Read more

Phil Factor

18 November 2022

Phil Factor

18 November 2022

Executing Optional Code in Flyway Callbacks

When you are building or migrating a database, it is nice to have a system that you can easily configure for various tasks, such as logging, loading or dumping data, or backing up of the database. This article demonstrates how we can use a Flyway placeholder as a simple on/off switch for each task,... Read more

Phil Factor

11 November 2022

Phil Factor

11 November 2022

Cross-RDBMS Code Quality Reports in Flyway

Before you commit your Flyway migration files, you may want to run some automated checks for style or 'code smells'. This article demonstrates how to run basic cross-RDBMS code quality checks using SQL Fluff. We analyze the results in PowerShell to produce reports and analytics on the number or types of issues found. Read more

Phil Factor

26 October 2022

Phil Factor

26 October 2022

Maintaining a Utilities Schema in a Flyway Project

Whatever development methodology you use, it is useful to have, and independently maintain, a separate schema within a database for utilities. These utilities are database objects that monitor the functioning and operation of the database, but aren't part of the database. This article demonstrates how to manage these utilities from Flyway so that we... Read more

Phil Factor

30 September 2022

Phil Factor

30 September 2022

Using SQL Backup in Flyway Development Work

For a development team, SQL Backup provides a simple way to restore development or test databases, if required, while minimizing the tedium of the task of taking, managing, and restoring the backups. We can generate the required backup commands in the GUI and then use them to construct a SQL script that backs up... Read more