Tony Davis

Tony Davis is an Editor with Red Gate Software, based in Cambridge (UK), specializing in databases, and especially SQL Server. He edits articles and writes editorials for both the Simple-talk.com and SQLServerCentral.com websites and newsletters, with a combined audience of over 1.5 million subscribers. You can sample his short-form writing at either his Simple-Talk.com blog or his SQLServerCentral.com author page.

As the editor behind most of the SQL Server books published by Red Gate, he spends much of his time helping others express what they know about SQL Server. He is also the lead author of the book, SQL Server Transaction Log Management.

In his spare time, he enjoys running, football, contemporary fiction and real ale.

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14 February 2014
14 February 2014

DevOps Dilemma

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The term ‘DevOps’ has been widely misunderstood because the different teams within any really substantial development project understand the work of the other teams so poorly. There will be several teams, including business analysts, technical architects (maybe), UX specialists, designers, testers, and developers. No development specialists, however, have until recently had the production environment firmly … Read more
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17 January 2014
17 January 2014

Should IT Managers Code?

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In one of his first ever Simple-talk articles, Phil Factor tells the story of a freelance Sybase programmer who created a reporting system using exquisitely complex dynamically compiled stored procedures, and then promptly departed when he failed to secure a doubling of his contract rate. As Phil struggled to make sense of the code, with … Read more
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22 November 2013
22 November 2013

Cloud Insecurity

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Often, one sees the views of those raising reasoned doubts about cloud security dismissed as fogeyish and cloud-phobic. Of course, it’s a persuasive argument that cloud security is actually a non-issue, since under-investment means that the on-premise infrastructure of many organizations is a less secure environment for their applications than the cloud. The ClimateGate evidence, … Read more
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25 October 2013
25 October 2013

What the Hekaton?

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Hekaton, the power behind SQL Server 2014’s In-Memory OLTP technology, is intended to make data operations run orders of magnitude faster on SQL Server. This works its magic partly by serving database workloads entirely from main memory, using memory-optimized table structures. It replaces the relational engine’s standard locking model with an optimistic concurrency model based … Read more
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09 October 2013
09 October 2013

It’s the thought that counts…

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I recently finished editing a book called Tribal SQL, and it was a fantastic experience. It’s a community-sourced book written by first-timers. Fifteen previously unpublished authors contributed one chapter each, with the seemingly simple remit to write about “what makes them passionate about working with SQL Server, something that all SQL Server DBAs and developers … Read more
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15 August 2013
15 August 2013

Taming the SQL Beast

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The recent articles 10 Common Mistakes Java Developers make when Writing SQL and the follow-up, Ten More Mistakes… highlight some common crimes against SQL and offer sound advice. These mistakes aren’t restricted to Java programmers or Oracle. .NET programmers make them with SQL Server (see, for example, Plamen Ratchev’s Ten Common SQL Programming Mistakes from … Read more
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04 July 2013
04 July 2013

Comparing Apples and Pairs

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A recent study, High Costs and Negative Value of Pair Programming, by Capers Jones, pulls no punches in its assessment of the costs-to- benefits ratio of pair programming, two programmers working together, at a single computer, rather than separately. He implies that pair programming is a method rushed into production on a wave of enthusiasm … Read more
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06 June 2013
06 June 2013

What’s the use of code reuse?

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All great developers write reusable code, don’t they? Well, maybe, but as with all statements regarding what “great” developers do or don’t do, it’s probably an over-simplification. A novice programmer, in particular, will encounter in the literature a general assumption of the importance of code reusability. They spend time worrying about DRY (don’t repeat yourself), … Read more
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23 May 2013
23 May 2013

Cheating on Technical Debt

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One bad practice guaranteed to cause dismay amongst your colleagues is passing on technical debt without full disclosure. There could only be two reasons for this. Either the developer or DBA didn’t know the difference between good and bad practices, or concealed the debt. Neither reflects well on their professional competence. Technical debt, or code … Read more
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28 February 2013
28 February 2013

Aversion to Version Control

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Why shouldn’t we enjoy the benefits of distributed version control systems (DVCS) on Windows? I agree that we’ve made a start, now that, at last, we have a measure of integration into TFS and Visual Studio of Git, and with Atlassian porting SourceTree, their Mac client for Git and Mercurial, to Windows. This is fine … Read more
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05 February 2013
05 February 2013

Making PASS tick…

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On the final day of a hectic PASS Summit 2012, in Seattle, I caught up with Bill Graziano (@billgraziano), Douglas McDowell (@douglasmcdowell), and Thomas LaRock (@SQLRockstar) and quizzed them on all things PASS; what it means to the SQL Server community, its plans for the future, and what makes the PASS Summit stand out from … Read more
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17 January 2013
17 January 2013

Getting backs up about backups

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I’ve been leafing with interest through the book, Pro Data Backup and Recovery, by Steve Nelson. For anyone predisposed to consider backup strategy largely from the perspective of a SQL Server database administrator, there are some revelatory passages, and a few that may cause you to splutter coffee over your keyboard. According to one such … Read more
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06 December 2012
06 December 2012

SQL Server Optimizer Malfunction?

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There was a sharp intake of breath from the audience when Adam Machanic declared the SQL Server optimizer to be essentially “stuck in 1997”. It was during his fascinating “Query Tuning Mastery: Manhandling Parallelism” session at the recent PASS SQL Summit. Paraphrasing somewhat, Adam (blog | @AdamMachanic) offered a convincing argument that the optimizer often … Read more
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02 November 2012
02 November 2012

So it comes to PASS…

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How does your company gauge the benefit of attending a technical conference? What’s the best change you made as a direct result of attendance? It’s time again for the PASS Summit and I, like most people go with a set of general goals for enhancing technical knowledge; to learn more about PowerShell, to drill into … Read more
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16 October 2012
16 October 2012

SQL Server Transaction Log Management by Tony Davis and Gail Shaw

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When things go wrong, a DBA's reputation depends on an understanding of the transaction log, both what it does, and how it works. An effective response to a crisis requires rapid decisions based on understanding its role in ensuring data integrity. This book shows you how to control your transaction log, so that it doesn't control you.… Read more
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12 October 2012
12 October 2012

Data Model Dissonance

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So often at the start of the development of database applications, there is a premature rush to the keyboard. Unless, before we get there, we’ve mapped out and agreed the three data models, the Conceptual, the Logical and the Physical, then the inevitable refactoring will dog development work. It pays to get the data models … Read more
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14 September 2012
14 September 2012

Monitoring the Application alongside SQL Server

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Sometimes, on Simple-Talk, it takes a while to spot strange and unexpected patterns of user activity, or small bugs. For example, one morning we spotted that an article’s comment count had leapt to 1485, but that only four were displayed. With some rooting around in Google Analytics, and the endlessly annoying Community Server admin-interface, we … Read more
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