Annette is a Microsoft SQL Server MVP, and has been a SQL Developer since 2000, starting work with a London City based Law firm before moving to Cornwall and working as a part Developer part Managerial role. She then worked as Developer for a health care company and in 2015 joined the University of Exeter where she was the SQL Server DBA. Now Annette is working as a remote DBA for WellData, a leading UK provider of database support.
With everything that’s been going on in the world recently and all events being cancelled or postponed you might mistakenly think that people’s ability to learn and stay in touch would dissipate. You couldn’t be more wrong. User Group Meetup Hub I am the UK Regional Mentor for PASS which means that I’m the go-to … Read more
That’s a strange title I hear you say but it’s an honest question. I’ve worked in IT now for over 20 years and have got used to working in an office full of men. In my current role out of about 10 members of the technical team there are 2 of us which, makes it … Read more
You know what it’s like, you are running a service pack on SQL Server and 99.9% of the time it all runs smoothly but that odd 0.1% of the time when it doesn’t is usually in the middle of the night with no one around to call on. Well to spare you some pain I’ve … Read more
This is my first blog in a while and I’m sorry it’s not a technical one. You may be aware but I’m one of the SQLBits organisers which means that for the last few months all my spare time has been devoted to SQLBits organisation. We were really pleased with how the event went and … Read more
This year I decided that I wanted to give more back to the community in the way of sharing my (limited) knowledge. The first thing I did was talk to the folks at Redgate and started blogging. I haven’t presented a session for a while because I’m usually too busy organising events but I decided … Read more
I’m in the process of setting up a new environment using Azure SQL Databases, previously in Azure we’ve just used an Azure VM with SQL Server on it. I’m also fairly new to setting up a Continuous Integration environment and in-house we use Team City, so in this blog and probably the next few I’m going … Read more
I’ve just started a project where I’ve had to set up Team City from scratch. Whilst I’ve used Team City extensively I’ve never had to start from the beginning, so I thought I’d document the steps I took. TeamCity is a Continuous Integration tool is free to use for small teams. It connects to your … Read more
Last Friday (18th May 18) I attended Redgate’s SQL Privacy Summit in London. Before I go any further, for those of you who don’t know me, I’m based in the UK so GDPR is very much in the forefront of our minds and I am a Friend of Redgate. Unfortunately, I couldn’t attend all day … Read more
Currently the project I’m working on is using Azure’s Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and we want to move to using Azure SQL Database on Platform as a Service (PaaS). The one thing stopping us doing that was cross database scripting, known in Azure terms as an Elastic Query. Before we agreed the move to … Read more
On 25th May GDPR comes into force. I’ve been learning everything I can about GDPR to ensure my systems adhere to the regulations and will be attending Redgate’s SQL Privacy summit, details and registration here on Friday 18th May in London . However I’ve been really shocked at the amount of developers I know who … Read more
I am one of the organisers of SQLBits and this year we decided to make some real effort with the Community Corner. Craig Porteous (@CPorteous) happened to offer to help at a time when we were considering how to make that happen. Craig runs Glasgow User Group and SQL GLA which ran for the first … Read more
I am a firm advocate of commenting code, but you need to make sure that you are commenting the right thing. I worked on a project last year and then the project was paused. I’m now back on it full time, some 6 months later. I wrote most of the database code and all calls … Read more
I have finally decided to start blogging and Redgate have kindly given me a platform to do it. So, what am I going to blog about? Well pretty much anything and everything that I come across that is vaguely SQL Server related. Hopefully a lot of Azure content while I’m getting to grips with it. … Read more
SSIS is able to take sorted data from more than one OLE DB data source and merge them into one table which can then be sent to an OLE DB destination. This 'Merge Join' transformation works in a similar way to a SQL join by specifying a 'join key' relationship. This transformation can save a great deal of processing on the destination. Annette Allen, as usual, gives clear guidance on how to do it.… Read more
The Conditional Split can route data rows to different outputs depending on whatever criteria of the data that you wish. It works rather like the SWITCH block in a procedural language. Annette shows how to add a conditional split to your data flow.… Read more
The Control flow components of SSIS can cause a great deal of puzzlement to anyone learning SSIS, especially the Foreach Loop. Annette continues her popular 'Basics' series by showing how to use the Foreach Loop container for copying files.… Read more
The Execute SQL Task of SSIS is extraordinarily useful, but it can cause a lot of difficulty for developers learning SSIS, or only using it occasionally. What it needed, we felt, was a clear step-by-step guide that showed the basics of how to use it effectively. Annette has once again cleared the fog of confusion… Read more
In the third of her SSIS Basics articles, Annette Allen shows you how to use Variables in your SSIS Packages, and explains the functions of the system-defined variables.… Read more
Annette continues her popular series for SSIS beginners by showing how a data flow task can be used in a package to move data from a SQL Server database to an Excel file and insert an additional column into the Excel file that's based on derived data.… Read more
When working with databases, the use of SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) is a skill that often needs to be acquired quickly, from scratch. Up until now, it has been a curiously frustrating search to find out the basics, fast, in order to get up and running quickly. No longer, as Annette comes up with a simple introduction for the rest of us.… Read more