In the second part of his series, Nicolas Prigent describes in detail how to automate the login process using PowerShell and Azure CLI. Nicolas also explains how to retrieve information about your Azure subscription.… Read more
In Windows Server 2016, Microsoft have implemented a strong security concept called Shielded Virtual Machines. Shielded VMs have been improved in the Windows Server 2019 release. In the second part of this series, Nicolas describes what Shielded Virtual Machines are and how to configure them using PowerShell.… Read more
Creating a real-time IT dashboard is essential for IT professionals for managing their environments and to be proactive. A Few months ago, a great tool called ‘PowerShell Universal Dashboard’ or ‘PoshUD’ was officially released. In this article, Nicolas Prigent describes PoshUD, and how to use it to monitor your infrastructure using PowerShell.… Read more
The ability to quickly spin up a virtual machine is one of the great things about Azure. In this article, Robert Cain describes the steps to set up a VM using PowerShell using his PSAzure module. … Read more
Docker continues to make improvements in their products running on Windows. In this article, Nicolas Prigent explains how to share data between Windows containers and the container host. As a bonus, he also shows how to run a Linux container on Windows Server 2016.… Read more
Azure virtual machines are created for many reasons, even just to have an environment to quickly test something out. In this article, Robert Cain demonstrates the first few steps in automating the process with PowerShell. He shows how to gather information needed and set up a resource group, storage and networking needed for the VM. … Read more
With SQL Server 2017, Microsoft announced the exciting news that SQL Server would now run in Docker containers. Laerte Junior provides a guide to get started creating SQL Server instances in Docker.… Read more
With Amazon RDS, it’s easy to have a SQL Server running in minutes. There are some limitations, though. Seth Delconte explains a workaround to overcome one of the limitations: the inability to restore a second copy of a database to recover missing data.… Read more
With SQL Server now supported on Linux, traditional SQL Server DBAs will need to learn how to work with Linux, and Linux administrators will need to learn how to work with SQL Server. Fortunately, there are several tools available to assist. In this article Prashanth Jayaram describes how to work with the DMV tool which treats queries as files. … Read more
While software is among the most widely used products in human history, it also has one of the highest failure rates due to poor quality. In this article, Cynthia Dzikiti explains how quality should be part of all aspects of the software lifecycle. … Read more
IT shops do not want to spend time and energy managing infrastructure and servers as was done in the past. They must conserve resources for the things that add value for the business. Today, it is challenging for companies to automate and configure their Azure infrastructure. In the first part of his new series, Nicolas Prigent introduces the basics about Azure and Windows PowerShell for DevOps and Sysadmin.… Read more
Working with SQL Server in Agile software development can be difficult. Ben Brumm provides an overview of Agile, specifically Scrum, and what to expect when SQL Server, or really any SQL platform, is involved.… Read more
The key to efficient development is reusability. When developing scripts for administration, being able to restart a script where it left off is also important. Robert Cain shows you how to write functions in PowerShell that have these two qualities for administering Azure.… Read more
This article pulls together the concepts from two previous articles to demonstrate a way to automate the “on-demand” creation and deletion of an HDInsight cluster. This not only serves as a demonstration of the power of automating Azure provisioning, but is a practical solution for the user who only occasionally requires the power of HDInsight for scalable computations.… Read more
Because Azure is designed from the ground-up to allow automated provisioning, It provides a number of interesting opportunities for use. With a .NET language such as C#, it is possible to create a very flexible 'on-demand' infrastructure in Azure, using Azure Resource Manager templates, that allows users to economically deploy the resources they need just for the interval of time that they are required, and then destroy them. … Read more
Why release SQL Server as a Linux, as well as Windows, application? It baffled many DBAs when it was announced, though most shrugged and decided that it must be part of Microsoft’s long-term wrestling match with Oracle. When Microsoft previewed an early version of the Linux SQL Server on Ubuntu and Red-Hat, with ‘core relational … Read more
For some of us, DevOps means startups, cloud, fast-moving social media applications and Extreme Programming (XP). What about large corporate IT initiatives, Digital Transformation projects, and business process re-engineering? Can DevOps be relevant and appropriate? Mohammad Rizvi argues from experience that it most certainly can be.… Read more
Although Azure is the obvious Cloud service to host SQL Server, Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) for SQL Server is a good choice when your organisation uses AWS. RDS deals with maintenance and monitoring, and supports the use of PowerShell to automate routine tasks. What if a script needs to be triggered by an unscheduled event? Even in this case, RDS can be configured to run scripts to react when something like a failover happens. Laerte Junior shows how easy it is to set up Lambda functions and some PowerShell scripts to automatically synchronise agent jobs after a failover.… Read more
To achieve gains from Database Lifecycle Management in general, and in Continuous Deployment in particular, it pays to aim for lightweight but consistent techniques and processes, refining them iteratively in the light of experience. Edward Elliott describes a Test-driven development process for developing SQL Server databases that worked for CD, based on a series of steps. Though the tools for CD may be necessary, they are not sufficient, without an effective structured process.… Read more
So far, in this series, Nicolas has shown how to get simple container instances up and running with just some basic background information. Now we need to understand the differences between Linux containers, Windows Server containers and Hyper-V containers. We can then define, create and run multi-container Docker applications, and port existing Windows Container VMs to Docker.… Read more
Compliant Database DevOps
Standardize team-based development
Automate database deployments
Monitor performance and availability
Protect and preserve data
