When SQL Server 2017 launched, Microsoft proudly announced that it was the first relational database engine to ship with built-in artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities. In the future, database servers running its software won’t just be able to store, query, and analyse data. Instead, they’ll also be able to perform machine learning, natural language, and neural... Read more
Updated November 2018 You’ve no doubt heard at least something about the GDPR, the EU’s new privacy and Data Management law with its greatly increased maximum fines for non-compliance and tighter definitions for acceptable use of personal information. It came into effect in May 2018. If you’ve continued reading past paragraph one of any... Read more
We’re excited to be part of Microsoft Ignite this year, in sunny Orlando, Florida. In Microsoft’s own words, this is the event where ‘The community of IT professionals comes together to transform your businesses’. It’s the perfect opportunity to learn about breaking announcements and plans, see the latest technology in action, and ask questions... Read more
DevOps has come a long way since it was first showcased in Flickr’s seminal ’10 deploys per day’ Velocity presentation in 2009. Just eight years later, it is being rapidly adopted and, as the 2017 State of DevOps Report from DORA and Puppet shows, there are big advantages for companies and organizations which embrace... Read more
If you’re doing DevOps differently for your database and the rest of your system, there’s something wrong. There shouldn’t be a separate conversation about it, says Microsoft’s Donovan Brown. When DevOps was first talked about in Flickr’s seminal ’10 deploys per day’ Velocity presentation in 2009, it was regarded by some as strange and... Read more
The download count of the tSQLt unit testing framework is surprisingly low, yet this outstanding open source software can revolutionize your SQL Server development process. Hopefully, this post will show the benefits of test-driven development and including automated SQL Server unit testing within your release pipeline. This simple technique can have a profound effect... Read more
In this post, we imagine how auto-classification of data can be used to build better documentation that helps you trust that your organization can use data without posing a risk or compromising regulatory compliance. You may have read recently about how we’ve spent the last month exploring the theme of data classification in Foundry,... Read more
Not too long ago I was assisting a client with an issue they were experiencing while running some compliance software to check for sensitive data. Sensitive data was picked up in the SQL Server data file but when the DBAs checked, the data was nowhere to be found in the database. It’s fairly widely... Read more
SQL Data Mask is the latest prototype to come out of Foundry, Redgate’s research and development division. It copies your database while anonymizing personal data. You can use it to mask your databases right now, free of charge, so download the latest on-premises version. We’re working closely with a select group of people who... Read more
Slow, unreliable tests prevent teams doing great work, and make continuous delivery impossible. This was true for our SQL Source Control team when I started working with them. From pushing a commit to getting a complete set of tests took almost 12 hours. Then you had to rerun the raft of tests that sometimes... Read more
