Why Standards are Important
There is something in the tech mindset that simultaneously loves and loathes a standard. Having standards is important, what those standards are is less so.
2025-01-22
2,337 reads
David Poole
- Interests: Badminton, Cycling and Music. Keen piano player.
An introduction to Terraform
As a Data Engineer I found myself having to learn rather more about cloud infrastructure than I had expected.
2024-12-02
3,635 reads
JQ - Tool for Querying JSON documents using the CLI
Learn how you can query JSON data from a CLI to check it before importing the data into a database.
2024-02-16
8,172 reads
Managing Change
Time has brought clarity for changes which could and should have been provided by its instigators. We compare a change where clarity was sought to those that were chaotic and the approaches that were taken at their two poles.
2023-08-16
1,483 reads
Using pre-commit to prevent simple mistakes
Git hooks are a useful way of triggering code quality scripts. The pre-commit tool provides us with a way of doing this and tapping into the huge library of scripts already in existence to ensure our code complies with general linting and formatting good practice.
2023-01-13
6,443 reads
Design your systems and processes for auditability
I have worked in more than one regulated industry, and since the banking crisis of 2008, I have witnessed a sea change in the approach to regulation. The UK Financial Services Authority (FSA) was seen to be a toothless tiger. The UK government replaced the FSA with two separate bodies, each with its own more […]
2021-10-25
1,582 reads
PostGres and SQL Server - Divided by a common language
A few lessons from a SQL Server DBA that is working on PostgreSQL. David Poole tells us where the similarities in the platforms can cause problems.
2021-07-30
4,073 reads
Soft Skills: Controlling your career
Technical skills come and go while soft skills will serve you throughout your life. They will have the greatest influence over your career, job and role. For some people soft skills come naturally. As an Aspergers person (Aspie) I have to practice my soft skills at every opportunity. Pure techies need not lose hope. Soft […]
2021-04-23 (first published: 2019-09-19)
6,616 reads
Re-oiling the gears for the data dictionary or catalog
Documentation is never a favorite task for developers. This article describes how you can use database system catalogs to make generating column descriptions less labor-intensive and also jump start a data dictionary or catalog.
2020-01-14
3,817 reads
Vagrant and SQL Server 2017 on Linux
Vagrant provides a mechanism to build and configure a virtual Linux box running SQL Server 2017
2019-08-16 (first published: 2017-11-14)
5,438 reads
Blogs
Using CAT for Testing of Data Agents
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Are you getting value from your reporting?
By ChrisJenkins
Do you spend so long manipulating your data into something vaguely useful that you...
The Book of Redgate: SQL Server Central
By Steve Jones
It was neat to stumble on this in the book, a piece by me,...
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Backup to Immutable Storage
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Microsoft Security Changes and SQL Server
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Question of the Day
Backup to Immutable Storage
In SQL Server 2025, a backup can be made on Azure Immutable Storage. What changes in how the backup is created?
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