Consider a customer who needs to deploy sequence objects to multiple SQL Server production databases, but where the values generated for the surrogate key, in each database, must be unique. This article demonstrates one way that this can be accomplished with Flyway. Read more
I was recently joined for a live webinar by Tony Maddonna (Microsoft Platform Lead, Enterprise Architect & Operations Manager at BMW) and Hamish Watson (DevOps Alchemist at Morph iT) to discuss their experiences with digital transformation and the impact it had on them, their teams and the wider organization. One of the key themes... Read more
Data masking is a technique of hiding sensitive data from certain users who should not be able to view or access the actual values. This post will look at the reasons why you might choose to implement data masking and discuss both dynamic and static data masking techniques, and when it is appropriate to... Read more
Since the release of the State of DevOps report by Puppet Labs ten years ago, various organizations have looked at how we could build better software. The generally agreed finding is the need to deliver more value to our customers, and how we can make the delivery of that value as smooth as possible.... Read more
Enforcement of the GDPR began in May 2018 and across the EU it seems to have been a relatively quiet period, with few fines handed down for non-compliance. Indeed, most organizations probably think all of their preparations have been worth the effort, and are well prepared for complaints from customers or investigations by regulatory... Read more
If a table runs out of IDENTITY values then it, and any dependent services and applications, will be "read-only" until the problem is fixed. Steve Jones explains how to set up a custom monitor to detect and prevent such problems. Read more
Steve Jones shows how to set up a SQL Change Automation (SCA) project in Visual Studio, and import an existing database. As the team make database changes, either in SSMS or VS, they import them into the SCA project, which saves each change as a migration script that is then committed to source control. Read more
Data breaches are the new normal – according to the Identity Theft Resource Center there were nearly 1,600 of them in 2017 in the US alone, exposing 179 million records. Demonstrating the scale of the issue on the other side of the Atlantic, UK retailer Dixons Carphone admitted in June 2018 that it had... Read more