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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17 August 2012
17 August 2012

Fear of the Unknown Codebase

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It is inevitable that anyone who inherits responsibility for an application will experience that feeling of nagging apprehension. Some signs of doom are universal, the same whether it is a legacy code base, a bought-in system, or group of SQL Servers. It starts with the shiftiness of the manager breaking the news, telltale beads of … Read more
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02 August 2012
02 August 2012

Automating Sanity Checks for Database Deployments

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Although development teams are inching closer toward their ideal of a fully automated build and deployment strategy for their applications, a stage remains that is obstinately resistant to automation. Database deployment, and the handover to production support is both inevitable and necessary, but it is currently a manual process. This is particularly tricky in larger … Read more
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05 July 2012
05 July 2012

When done is not done

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Most developers and DBAs will know what it’s like to be asked to do “a quick tidy up” on a project that, on closer inspection, turns out to be a barely working prototype: as the cynical programmer says, “when you’re told that a project is 90% done, prepare for the next 90%”. It is easy … Read more
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27 April 2012
27 April 2012

IT Admin for Thrill Seekers

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A developer suggested to me recently that the life of the DBA was, surely, a dull one. My first reaction was indignation, but quickly followed by the thought that for many people excitement isn’t necessarily the most desirable aspect of their job. It’s true that some aspects of the DBA role seem guaranteed to quieten … Read more
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13 April 2012
13 April 2012

Going Metro

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When it was announced, I confess was somewhat surprised by the striking new “Metro” User Interface for Windows 8, based on Swiss typography, Bauhaus design, tiles, touches and gestures, and the new Windows Runtime (WinRT) API on which Metro apps were to be built. It all seemed to have come out of nowhere, like field … Read more
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16 March 2012
16 March 2012

Concurrent Affairs

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I once wrote an editorial, multi-core mania, on the conundrum of ever-increasing numbers of processor cores, but without the concurrent programming techniques to get anywhere near exploiting their performance potential. I came to the.controversial.conclusion that, while the problem loomed for all procedural languages, it was not a big issue for the vast majority of programmers. … Read more
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02 March 2012
02 March 2012

A Community Cure for a String Splitting Headache

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A heartwarming tale of dogged perseverance and Community collaboration to solve some SQL Server string-related headaches. Michael J Swart posted a blog this week that had me smiling in recognition and agreement, describing how an inquisitive Developer or DBA deals with a problem. It’s a three-step process, starting with discomfort and anxiety; a feeling that … Read more
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03 February 2012
03 February 2012

To Not CI to Eye

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Many developers, including Troy Hunt, here on Simple-Talk, have argued persuasively that each database developer in a team needs to work as sole user of a dedicated database-development environment whilst creating or updating databases. Troy makes a good case, listing several shortcomings of the shared development model: developers are no longer free to experiment and … Read more
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29 September 2011
29 September 2011

Time for a rethink on SQL CLR?

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It is almost seven years since Microsoft announced the sensational news that, with their new SQL Server 2005, you could do data manipulation in Visual Basic or C# as well as SQL. The marketing people got overexcited, stabbing out clichés from their keyboards such as “new era”, and “revolutionary”. However, they had run off barking … Read more
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08 July 2011
08 July 2011

Bug Me Not

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Bug metrics are a notoriously erratic way to judge the performance of a development team and project, but despite this almost all software projects use them. There is a lot of data you can get from an electronic bug-tracking system, from bugs per lines of code, bugs per component, to defect trend graphs and bug … Read more
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31 March 2011
31 March 2011

An Agile House of Straw

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The ideal Agile application developer welcomes changing requirements, even late in development. The DBA or Database Developer doesn’t. Why is that? You can’t create complex databases in the Agile way, by breaking tasks into small increments, with minimal planning. Building a database that will perform quickly, reliably and securely over time, as it grows, is … Read more
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17 March 2011
17 March 2011

New Wine in New Bottles

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How many people, when their car shows signs of wear and tear, would consider upgrading the engine and keeping the shell? Even if you’re cash-strapped, you’ll soon work out the subtlety of the economics, the cost of sudden breakdowns, the precious time lost coping with the hassle, and the low ‘book value’. You’ll generally buy … Read more
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07 January 2011
07 January 2011

Head in the Clouds

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We’re just past the second anniversary of the launch of Windows Azure. A couple of years’ experience with Azure in the industry has provided some obvious success stories, but has deflated some of the initial marketing hyperbole. As a general principle, Azure seems to work well in providing a Service-Oriented Architecture for services in enterprises … Read more
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09 December 2010
09 December 2010

Emoti-phrases

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Surely the next radical step in the development of User-interface design is for applications to react appropriately to the rising tide of bewilderment, frustration or antipathy of the users. When an application understands that rapport is lost, it should respond accordingly. When we, for example, become confused by an unforgiving interface, shouldn’t there be a … Read more
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28 October 2010
28 October 2010

SA no more!

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Despite it being such an obvious security problem, developers still use the sa login, or assign sysadmin privileges to their Windows login, during their development work. Some take rather belligerent stance on this (“it’s my server; it’s not exposed to the outside world. What’s your problem?!”), but it seems to me that the majority are … Read more
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19 October 2010
19 October 2010

Best Practice and Judgement

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Until the recent promise of generally-available broadband, the industry had to wrestle with the task of providing a solution to the problem of company staff with portable computers who have to view and update information in databases to which they are only occasionally connected. In the past, panaceas have been described in the technical press … Read more
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