Defusing Flyway Validation Errors using Smarter Checksum Comparisons

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

Simplifying Data Import and Export for Database Development

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

Understanding PostgreSQL’s Cache Hit Ratio

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

Making Full Use of Environment Variables for Flyway Settings

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

Better Database Incident Management with Redgate Monitor

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

Deterministic Data Masking in Redgate Test Data Manager

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

The Importance of Access Checks and Controls in Database Development

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

Forks in Flyway Database Development Work

Database forking allows teams to multi-task, working on different strands of development in parallel. It also allows them to manage several 'variants' of a production database, such as for SaaS applications with client-specific schema requirements. This article explains how Flyway supports and simplifies database forking, via use of Flyway's locations, baseline migrations and by mapping Flyway projects to schemas. Read more

Instant Database Reset and Easier Bug Fixing using Clones

The article demonstrates how the use of lightweight, containerized clones removes the problem of 'mopping up' after a database migration fails part way through, particularly in database systems like MySQL that don't support DDL transaction rollback. A quick reset to the previous saved revision provides 'instant rollback'. It also demos how they make it much easier and less disruptive to do retrospective bug fixing on older migrations. Read more

Using Flyway and Data Containers for Database Testing: Rapid Setup and Teardown

This article demonstrates how to use the rgclone CLI in Redgate Test Data Manager to automatically save each new version of a database created by Flyway as a data container revision, tracking which Flyway version maps to which container revision. We can then, from a single data container, load any version of the database during test setup, as well as quickly 'reset' a container during test teardown. Read more

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