Grant Fritchey

Grant Fritchey is a Data Platform MVP with over 30 years' experience in IT, including time spent in support and development. He has worked with SQL Server since 6.0 back in 1995. He has also developed in VB, VB.NET, C#, and Java. Grant has written books for Apress and Simple-Talk. Grant presents at conferences and user groups, large and small, all over the world. Grant volunteers for PASS and is on the Board of Directors as the Immediate Past President. He joined Redgate Software as a product advocate January 2011.

Follow Grant Fritchey via
30 November 2011
30 November 2011

Unit Testing TSQL

0
0
I went through a period of time where I spent a lot of effort figuring out how to set up unit tests for TSQL. It wasn’t easy. There are a few tools out there that help, but mostly it involves lots of programming. well, not as much as before. Thanks to the latest Down Tools … Read more
0
0
26 October 2011
26 October 2011

SSMS Tools Pack 2.0

0
29
If you work with SSMS, you'll know how frustrating it can be when tasks you perform every day aren't part of the core features. Mladen Prajdic certainly did, which is why he developed his free SSMS Tools Pack. Now on its second version, Grant Fritchey explains the functionality of this great free plugin.… Read more
0
29
12 October 2011
12 October 2011

Auditing DDL Changes in SQL Server databases

0
22
Even where Source Control isn't being used by developers, it is still possible to automate the process of tracking the changes being made to a database and put those into Source Control, in order to track what changed and when. You can even get an email alert when it happens. With suitable scripting, you can even do it if you don't have direct access to the live database. Grant shows how easy this is with SQL Compare.… Read more
0
22
03 October 2011
03 October 2011

Signal to Noise

0
0
Out of the box SQL Monitor has a number of alerts configured for you. You can just install the software, set up an SMTP account for it and walk away. Suddenly, you’ll start receiving emails from Monitor because some of your systems will hit an alert threshold. Win right? Then you notice that you’re getting … Read more
0
0
13 September 2011
13 September 2011

SQL# (SQLsharp): A Review

0
38
Only the brave, and foolhardy, write production CLR routines if you can get the functionality already-written and tested. Whether you're a DBA or developer, there are plenty of times when a CLR routine will save a lot of time, and occasionally provide new functionality.… Read more
0
38
23 August 2011
23 August 2011

Exploring SQL Azure

0
0
I’m spending a little bit of time each week trying out a few things in SQL Azure. I’m convinced that we’re going to be spending time tuning our SQL Azure databases much the same way as we tune our regular SQL Server databases. That is to say, we won’t tune the databases at all until … Read more
0
0
15 August 2011
15 August 2011

Preventing Problems in SQL Server

0
28
It is never a good idea to let your users be the ones to tell you of database server outages. It is far better to be able to spot potential problems by being alerted for the most relevant conditions on your servers at the best threshold. This will take time and patience, but the reward will be an alerting system which allows you to deal more effectively with issues before they involve system down-tim… Read more
0
28
28 June 2011
28 June 2011

SQLIO Writes

0
0
SQLIO is a fantastic utility for testing the abilities of the disks in your system. It has a very unfortunate name though, since it’s not really a SQL Server testing utility at all. It really is a disk utility. They ought to call it DiskIO because they’d get more people using I think. Anyway, branding … Read more
0
0
20 June 2011
20 June 2011

SQL Excursions

0
0
Not everyone likes boats. Some people like hanging out, on dry land, maybe sipping a good wine. Interested in doing that AND learning some new stuff about SQL Server? Then you might want to check out SQL Excursions. Denny Cherry (blog|twitter), MVP and terribly sharp individual, has organized this new venture to supply small group … Read more
0
0
24 May 2011
24 May 2011

SQL Server Backup and Restore for the Accidental DBA

0
59
Not everyone who is tasked with the job of ensuring that databases are backed up, and easily restorable, consider themselves to be database administrators. If you are one of these 'Accidental DBAs' then Grant Fritchey has some good straightforward advice for you to ensure that things go well when a database has to be restored from backups … Read more
0
59
20 May 2011
20 May 2011

Tools for Cloud Construction

0
0
I’ve been reviewing the tools coming from Microsoft that help you deploy and manage your SQL Azure database over on Scary DBA. Over here, quite frankly, I’ve been pointing out that we have a selection of tools that are already working better than those coming from the MS tool set. But I hadn’t seen them … Read more
0
0
04 May 2011
04 May 2011

Emergency Database Restores

0
0
I was reading a good article by Brent Ozar (blog|twitter) on a DBA Nightmare where I came across this section: If you decide to restore the system databases, you should try this ahead of time.  Restoring the master database is different than typical user databases because you can’t use SQL Server Management Studio.  You have … Read more
0
0