I spent yesterday in midtown Manhattan at Red Gate’s SQL in the City (http://sqlinthecity.red-gate.com). Basically it is a single day conference that has technical sessions looking at various aspects of SQL development and management and shoes how to address them, especially using their tools. It is an entirely free event, so I did not mind the Red Gate plugs, although I do wish that more solutions were presented that did not necessarily involve their tools.
I took the train in to midtown and walked to the conference center. It was a short enough walk except for the fact that it was pouring. Cats and dogs, and probably a few other small mammals as well. Once I got there, I registered and was given an agenda, a small notebook, and the world’s smallest pen. I went downstairs and started mingling. One annoyance was that because the conference was downstairs, the battery on my smartphone started dying quickly. If not for one of the ‘Redgaters’ letting me use their charger at lunch, my battery would have hit 0 at about 2 PM.
There were several podiums set up in the central area of the conference. Each podium had a laptop set up and was manned by a Red Gate employee. The all focused on different products. One laptop had someone demonstrating SQL Compare, and fielding questions about it, another was using SQL Source Control, etc. This central area was actually my biggest complaint about the event – it was too small for the cadre of DBAs and developers moving about, especially considering most had laptops in tow, and there was food to be had as well.
A note on the food – there was plenty. In the morning, they provided bagels, croissants, muffins, fruit salad, etc. The provided a variarty of sandwiches and wraps for lunch as well.
Anyway, ignoring my food distraction, the first session was a keynote by Simon Galbraith, co-CEO of Red Gate. He started the talk with a demo. There were four pairs of balloons, and each pair consisted of one balloon representing code and another representing the database. The goal was for each pair to get passed from the front of the room to the back, representing the path that code and DB changes go through from dev to test to qa to staging to prod. And the audience had to keep their eyes closed. Not surprisingly, there were four failed deployments. He used the demo to start a discussion of where Red Gate is as a company and what challenges they are trying to assist the SQL community with, specifically trying to look at source code control not just of code but of databases as well. He also introduced a new beta-only tool to automate deployments of code and DB changes from one environment to another, and to set up a continuous integration environment.
After the keynote the actual sessions started. The first session I attended was presented by Steve Jones, who runs SQLServerCentral.com. The topic was on Database Maintenance Essentials. It covered a lot of fundamental stuff, all of which I had heard before, and implemented. However, database administration is a lot like many disciplines where you must master the basics, and keep reviewing them at regular intervals. Steve was an energetic speaker, and put on a good show.
Next up, I went to a session presented by Grant Fritchey on The Complete Lifecycle of Database Development with Red Gate tools. His discussion talked about the differenct environments for development, with specifics regarding how databases can be integrated into those environments. Things like what level of access developers should have to various environments, what backup protocols make sense, what monitoring should there be, etc.
Lunch followed this and then on to the afternoon sessions. I attended a session titles “The Whys and Hows of Database Continuous Integration”. The session demonstrated the use of SQL Source Control to check in database changes, and then using TeamCity as a CI app to immediately build and test the changes. The tests were put together with tSQLt, and even though there were some technical difficulties, the concept is very similar to what my current employer is attempting to do.
Next I ventured into a session titled “Business Continuity and the Evolution of DR”, presented by Robert Pearl, a SQL MVP (and not a Red Gate employee). He covered the basics from SQL 6.5 to SQL 2012, and gave a nice overview of the SQL 2012 Always On technologies. I still have not played around with 2012 much, but at some point I will have to get up to speed.
The last session of the day was on database deployments. It focused on various ways of deploying database changes from executing in SSMS (easy and simple, but not scalable) to using Powershell (more scalable, but tedious, and potentially error prone. Finally this led to a demo of a beta Red Gate application called Deployment Manager that can be used to manage deployments and pushes amoung various environments.
After the final sessions there was a reception in the crowded lobby. There was more food, beer, wine, and some giveaways – they raffled off a license for their SQL Toolbelt, and also for a pass to SQL Server Live in Florida this December. Every attendee was able to take several books from the Red Gate Library as well.
All in all, it was a worthwhile day. I do wish that the sessions were a little less Red Gate centric, but considering that the event was free and they sponsored it, I can’t complain. I do have some things to try out in the office come Monday as well, and that is what I generally want out of a conference – did I learn about something that I might find useful on the job.