This article demonstrates using PowerShell-based tokenization to compare two SQL migration files. It ignores non-functional changes like comments or formatting and pinpoints the first meaningful change in SQL logic, providing detailed feedback on its location and nature. Read more
Managing database security, compliance, and performance across a complex estate is no easy task. Redgate Monitor Enterprise brings all the data you need into one place. This article explores how it helps DBAs track user permissions, ensure configuration compliance, create custom reports, and implement resilient high-availability monitoring. Read more
This article provides a scripted SQL tokenizer script that quickly verifies whether a Flyway validation error is a real cause for concern, due to retrospective metadata changes, or just the result of a developer valiantly adding formatting and documentation to improve the code. If the changes are purely cosmetic, we can safely run Flyway repair to resume normal migrations. Read more
Extracting and importing data for development and testing is made trickier due to issues such as constraints, dependencies, and special data types. This article introduces a cross-RDBMS solution with JSON for data storage and PowerShell cmdlets that use ODBC to help automate extraction and import, and JSON Schema for validation. Just provide a DSN, and you’re good to go! Read more
This article explores PostgreSQL's buffer cache hit ratio (BCHR), a metric tracked by Redgate Monitor to help you assess the health and performance of your databases. By correctly interpreting this ratio and using it with other relevant memory and IO metrics, you can identify potential bottlenecks in query execution before they impact users. Read more
Environment Variables make interactive use of Flyway much easier, and they are essential when developing callback scripts. This article explains the range of configuration details you can provide and how, and demos a PowerShell script to auto-convert the parameter values stored in Flyway .conf files into environment variables. Read more
This article demonstrates how Redgate Monitor helps teams manage database incidents efficiently, by providing the right data to the right people, at each stage of a tiered incident response system. With fewer distractions from routine issues, specialist staff can focus on core tasks while teams resolve problems faster and prevent future disruptions. Read more
Redgate Test Data Manager is designed to provide secure, anonymized, and representative copies of production databases. This article focuses on the role of deterministic data masking, transforming PII consistently across tables, even when no logical relationship exists between them, and explains how it works. Read more
This article demonstrates three ways to install and maintain the Flyway CLI. I start with the easiest way, which is to run it from Docker. Next, is a standard, manual installation on both Windows and Linux, complete with a PowerShell routine that uses aliases to make it easier to keep Flyway up to date and to switch between versions. Finally, I'll describe briefly the advantages and disadvantages of using a Package Manager like Chocolatey. Read more
This article illustrates the importance in any database development project of a 'multi-layered' approach to database access controls and security checks, based on the Principle of Least Privilege. It describes a security incident that was raised when databases related to a local development project were found to have been erroneously deployed to a remote test server. It explains the nature of the incident, what went wrong that allowed it to happen, and the measures that were put in place to prevent its recurrence. Read more