Andrew Clarke

Andrew Clarke has been developing software applications for over 35 years. He is a database expert, but also has had many years of experience in designing and programming applications and software tools. He has a particular interest in website-publishing and ECommerce. Before joining Redgate, he worked with the first two winners of the 'Apprentice' program at Amstrad, creating various business applications, He is the editor of Simple-Talk.

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26 March 2013
26 March 2013

Towards Security as a Service?

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There’s some fuss around the additional security risks of moving an existing service within a corporate data center, to a cloud-hosted virtual machine, with a shared infrastructure. I appreciate the caution, but I wonder if they aren’t overstated. Sure, there are new risks, intrinsic to the cloud. For example, the so-called Hyper-jack is a security … Read more
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10 May 2011
10 May 2011

Cloud Cuckoo Land

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Does it strike you odd that, despite the outage of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and Elastic Block Storage on April 21 2011, many of the customers who were affected are still so keen on the service? It puzzled me until I considered the huge diversity of applications out there. If these customers had been … Read more
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15 March 2011
15 March 2011

The Hot-Add Memory Hogs

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One of the more difficult tasks, when virtualizing a server, is to determine the amount of memory that Hypervisor should assign to the virtual machine. This requires accurate monitoring and, because of the consequences of setting the value too low, there is a great temptation to err on the side of over-provisioning. This results in … Read more
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17 February 2011
17 February 2011

Opportunity Nokia’s

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Nokia’s alliance with Microsoft is likely to be good news for anyone using Microsoft technologies, and particularly for .NET developers. Before the announcement, the future wasn’t looking so bright for the ‘mobile’ version of Windows, Windows Phone. Microsoft currently has only 3.1% of the Smartphone market, even though it has been involved in it for … Read more
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14 February 2011
14 February 2011

RSS Feeds currently on Simple Talk

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(Updated November 2017) There are a number of news-feeds for the Simple-Talk site, but the icon to click on isn’t particularly easy to spot. It at the top of the browser window next to the ‘Log in’/’Log out’ link. Now we have reorganised the site and it has become part of the Redgate hub, I … Read more
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02 September 2010
02 September 2010

SQL Source Control: The Development Story, Part II

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When creating SQL Source Control, the team had to make decisions as to which source control systems the tool would support, and needed to accomodate a range of different development practices. It also had to avoid the potential problems from the fundemental differences between database builds and application builds, David and Stephanie, from the team that wrote the tool, explain what they did, and why.… Read more
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23 July 2010
23 July 2010

WebMatrix and SQL Server Compact Edition. Something for the rest of us?

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WebMatrix, currently in beta,  is Microsoft’s newest initiative aimed at those of us who take no pleasure in using the overweight Visual Studio, but need to develop websites easily. For  web-based applications such as blogs, forums,  CMSs and wikis, WebMarix’s design seems ideal, though it is currently working only in parts. At the heart of … Read more
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22 July 2010
22 July 2010

SQL Source Control: The Development Story

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Often, there is a huge difference between software being easy to use, and easy to develop. When your pilot users tell you "by week three of any development project you've thrown out anything that takes time or just gets in your way", then it is time to be serious about usability, as well as quality. We decided to find out from some of those at the sharp end of the development of Red Gate's SQL Source Control.… Read more
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19 February 2010
19 February 2010

Who Tests the Tester?

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It is scarcely surprising that it can take up to five years to release a new version of SQL Server when one understands the extent of the effort required to test it. When enterprises depend on the reliability of an application or tool such as SQL Backup, the contribution of the tester is of paramount importance. It is an interesting and enjoyable role as well, as Andrew Clarke found out by chatting to testers at Red Gate. … Read more
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03 November 2008
03 November 2008

Winners of the Bejewelled Puzzle

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There are three winners: Timothy Walters – for his second solution with the offset table; He gets a $50 Amazon Voucher. Ryan Randall – for his first and second solutions; He gets a choice between a license for SQL Prompt and SQL Data Generator DrLechter – for his first and second solutions; He gets a … Read more
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22 October 2008
22 October 2008

.NET Reflector: Soup to Nuts

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.NET Reflector is almost an intrinsic part of the .NET Framework, a free tool for browsing the contents of a .NET assembly. When Lutz Roeder passed responsibility for development of the code to Red Gate, the team preserved the characteristic minimal look, focussing on updates and code improvements. Then they added a free add-in that allowed it to be accessed from within Visual Studio. Reflector Pro is a paid-for extension that allows Visual Studio users to debug code in .NET Reflector.… Read more
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15 July 2008
15 July 2008

Pasting code into a Blog.

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One reason that I often hear for the apparent inability of certain people to blog is that there is no way for Community Server to display code. It isn’t actually that hard. The obvious choice is to use Phil Factor’s prettifier. It is the reason he wrote it. If you need to show exactly what … Read more
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16 January 2008
16 January 2008

The Waffle Generator

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Sometimes, silly programs have a less obvious useful purpose. Andrew Clarke takes his classic 'Waffle Generator', and provides it in various forms, including a CSS Stylesheet tester, and as a Generator for SQL Data Generator. The Waffle Generator puts text into your test database!… Read more
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