Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

May 2021

What Happens When I Execute a Query?

To many developers and system administrators—and even to some database administrators—database engines are a black box. They’re complex pieces of software that, in some cases, even have their own operating systems—the database engine manages its own memory, reads and writes to disks, and handles numerous other system functions. In this post, you’ll learn about a specific feature of database engines—query optimization.

The four best features to look out for in SQL Monitor

I’m a Data Architect and I’ve been working with data and databases for years at companies like LA Fitness, Dell and now Kingston Technology in Fountain Valley, California. Over all of that time, I’ve used SQL Monitor. I loved it from the beginning and the latest updates to the global overview dashboard and other features have stepped it up another few notches.

Why Does My Database Need Indexes?

Have you ever deployed a new application that ran fine at first, then slowed to crawl as more and more data was added? Or tried to run a report that took minutes or even hours to come back? Database performance is a frequent bottleneck for many applications, and in this post you’ll learn about a critical aspect of database performance—indexes.

Debugging Azure Functions Locally

Azure Functions are great for running bits of processing on a trigger without having to worry about hosting. Recently, I needed to debug an Azure Function—I needed to hunt down a particularly evasive bug that wasn’t showing up in the unit and integration tests. As it turns out, debugging an Azure Function isn’t as trivial as simply running the debugger in Visual Studio. Instead, it requires some setup to replicate the environment and configuration typically available in Azure.

The top three insights from the 2021 State of Database DevOps report

Last year was a year of unprecedented challenges for everyone in every part of the world and every industry, and it was also a year of big changes in the IT sector. The pandemic underscored the role of the IT department as an enabler and a critical part of the transition to remote working. While digitalization was well underway before 2020, no one could have predicted the acceleration the pandemic brought on.

Crazy Like a Fox: Redis as Your Primary Database

Redis is fast. It’s fast because the data is all in memory. Persistence options are limited. Because of this, many people say, “Redis is for transient data only!” However, sometimes the need for speed and ease of operations can outweigh the durability downsides! In this talk, we look at a real SaaS business using Redis as its (only) datastore. You’ll learn why we decided to go all-in on Redis and the challenges we faced. You’ll learn how we operationalized the setup, handle backups and restores, and how we’ll scale out. Are we making a terrible mistake? You be the judge!

Monitoring and Tuning Open-Source Databases

By continuously running a well-built general-purpose database performance monitoring facility, organizations can gain constant visibility into the availability and responsiveness of their databases and database management systems (DBMSs). When such a tool is equipped with analytics to compare historical metrics against current values, administrators can immediately understand how current values and behaviors stack up against prior averages and typical baselines.

Overcoming Database DevOps Challenges: Part 1

As part of our research for the 2021 State of Database DevOps report, we asked 3,000+ recipients what they consider to be the greatest challenge when integrating database changes into a DevOps process. According to the respondents, these are the most important challenges facing database professionals when introducing DevOps practices to database development.

New plugins connect almost all of Redis for monitoring and visualization in Grafana

Mikhail Volkov is building observability and monitoring solutions at Volkov Labs and leading Redis plugins for Grafana. Since the Redis project first got underway in 2009, the open source in-memory data store has been embraced by thousands of companies of all types and sizes. According to Stackshare.io, well over 5,000 companies use Redis, including Uber, Airbnb, Twitter, Instagram, and Slack.

The Role of the DBA Is Changing

For good or for ill, technology is constantly shifting and with it, the roles of those who manage that technology also shift. This is no different for a DBA than it is for a developer, an admin, or analyst. As new technology, like the adoption of the cloud, changes the role, people start to question whether or not there’s even a need for a DBA. The shortest possible answer to that question, in my opinion, is “Yes”.

What Is the Database Server Doing?

One of the most common questions database professionals are asked by their systems and virtual machine (VM) administrators is “Why does the database server need so much memory?” You’ll get a more detailed answer to that question later in this post, but it’s important to understand a database engine is almost like a server within a server.

A Beginner's Guide to Building and Maintaining Database Documentation

Although writing better queries and building the right indexes are important parts of improving database performance, building clear database documentation can also contribute to this goal by helping you understand your database architecture. Painting a clear picture of the structure of your database gives you insight into your data flows and helps you identify redundant data and clarify business processes.

Top 10 metrics in PostgreSQL monitoring with Prometheus

PostgreSQL monitoring with Prometheus is an easy thing to do thanks to the PostgreSQL Exporter. PostgreSQL is an open-source relational database with a powerful community behind it. It’s very popular due to its strong stability and powerful data types. In this article, you’ll learn the top 10 metrics in PostgreSQL monitoring, with alert examples, both for PostgreSQL instances in Kubernetes and AWS RDS PostgreSQL instances.

How Query Sampling Improves Database Performance

Given the overwhelming importance of data to organizations, anything they can do to speed up troubleshooting problems in the databases they use is of great value. If a company can speed up or avoid troubleshooting, it frees up time they can invest in doing and building more with their data. Careful attention to database query construction and execution also pays similar dividends, as improved database performance helps organizations get more done faster.

The Future of Database DevOps

I work as Director at ThoughtWorks in the database and DevOps space. I’ve been here for 20+ years and I vaguely remember my first project at ThoughtWorks in 1999 when we had just started using Agile software development practices. The basic challenge we faced was how to move database changes at the same pace as application code and keep them in sync so that deployments would work. At the time, we had to invent all the tools, processes, and techniques that we needed.

A DBA's Habit for Success: CMMI (Part Two)

Welcome back to our five-part series in which we discuss a top habit for DBAs to increase business functionality. In part one of this series, we discussed the importance of a capability maturity model (CMM) and more specifically Level 1 of the information management maturity model (IMMM) and how the framework can provide a step-by-step process for DBAs to follow while also allowing businesses to gain skills along the way.

How to Speed Database Troubleshooting

Data provides an essential basis for reports and analytics, with the databases storing the data now driving and informing most custom and line-of-business applications. Thus, anything organizations can do to speed up troubleshooting for database problems is pure gold. In fact, time saved on troubleshooting turns into time organizations can invest in being more productive and profitable.

Identifying Index Fragmentation With SQL Sentry

Indexes play a critical role in SQL Server query performance. SQL Sentry Fragmentation Manager helps you make intelligent decisions about index management based on the table and index information collected. In this blog post, I’m going to discuss index fragmentation, several ways you can identify it, and why a more granular approach to index maintenance can save time and allow you to focus on other tasks during maintenance windows.

AdventureWorks, classified in under 20 minutes with SQL Data Catalog

It's hard to know where to start with Database Classification and many choose to go column-by-column. In this video join Chris as they show you how to get AdventureWorks classified in under 20 minutes using clever rules, bulk filters and a logical approach with Redgate SQL Data Catalog.

Rapidly Resolve Database Problems With Data Visualization

Organizations of all sizes invest in IT monitoring and analysis tools. But just because a computer knows what’s wrong doesn’t mean it can communicate those details effectively to IT teams. There is both art and science behind communication, which is why IT teams heavily rely upon data visualization. As organizations scale, so too does the importance of data visualization. Similarly, automating data analysis becomes increasingly useful with scale.

Ten Reasons Foglight is the Right Database Monitor for Your Business

Digital transformation is creating many challenges for businesses including data platform diversity, IT skills gaps, cost control (especially cloud) and a more complex technical environment that can have performance issues with many possible causes. Speed, always-on, outstanding customer experience, and cost control are the business requirements driving digital transformations and resulting in performance and risk challenges facing database operations teams. What are those challenges?

Introduction to database testing

In software development, processing and storing data in different states reflects the business rules an application is built on. The heart and soul of any software application is the data that is persisted in databases for retrieval and further processing. The database system (SQL or Non-SQL) chosen for an application must serve the required data processing and storage needs of the application.

6 Smart Practices That Optimize Database Performance Monitoring

The best business decisions are backed by data. Companies that constantly collect, analyze, and proficiently store this are more likely to succeed in the long run. An organization's database can be a direct source of revenue. Not only in the sense that data can be sold, but the insights produced can help the business too. Data about customer habits, market trends, etc., can enable a company to optimize its practices and find the most effective way to conduct tasks.

NiCE DB2 smart Management Pack 4.32 released

NiCE DB2 smart Management Pack 4.32 The NiCE DB2 smart Management Pack enables advanced health and performance diagnostics for DB2 databases using the Micro Focus Operations Bridge Manager. Leverage your existing investment, reduce costs, save time, and build efficiencies that will last beyond your expectations. Get the new NiCE smart DB2 Management Pack 4.32 and start advanced Db2 monitoring now. We are looking forward to smartening up your enterprise application monitoring.

Redgate's roadmap for cross-database DevOps

At Redgate, we strongly believe that all databases should be managed and orchestrated in the same way, with the same standards of security and quality in releases. For the past few years, we’ve been leading the adoption of database DevOps by focusing on the most challenging parts of the process like version control, continuous integration and making deployments consistent, predictable and repeatable.

How Database Performance Analysis Can Inform Database Selection

There’s a big difference between the MySQL database powering your internet of things (IoT) lightbulb and the one powering your website. There’s a chasm between the SQL Server Express database in your lightly used application’s VM and the monster multi-region SQL cluster you have running on Microsoft Azure. This kind of database diversity is everywhere today. But what are the differences between these databases, and how can administrators justify database spend?

The technology challenge of mergers and acquisitions in the insurance sector

Mergers and acquisitions are going on all over the market at the moment … and de-mergers as well, actually. Typically in a merger or acquisition, there’s some knowledge that it’s going to happen in advance. But until the Heads of Terms have been signed and there’s a Transition Service Agreement in place, people don’t really get moving with the activity needed to support the move, particularly on the technology side.

VMware Tanzu SQL: MySQL at Scale Made Easy for Kubernetes

We are happy to announce that VMware Tanzu SQL with MySQL for Kubernetes 1.0 is generally available! Tanzu customers can easily run MySQL at scale on Kubernetes with this new release, which complements our existing Postgres engine for Kubernetes. Even better, with this new release Tanzu Advanced customers now have the two most popular open source operational databases included with their purchase.

Diagnosing Database Performance Problems When You Aren't a Database Administrator

Deep specialization of IT administrators is a luxury only the largest organizations can typically afford. Smaller organizations rely on IT administrators with a more generalist skill set because they are—by necessity—responsible for a wide array of different technologies, and there simply isn’t time to specialize in the intricacies for any one of them. Yet modern IT is intricate.

The fastest SQL Change Automation, Azure DevOps and AzureSQL DB pipeline

Is it possible to set up an end-to-end deployment pipeline from Dev through to Production in Azure DevOps, with SQL Change Automation and Azure SQL DB in just 10 minutes? Join Chris Unwin, a Redgate Solution Engineer, as they try to break the record for setting up a migrations-first pipeline with SQL Change Automation from Dev to Continuous Integration and finally, deployment.

Overcoming Fear, Anxiety, and Mistrust to Gain Stakeholder Alignment

Most of us have encountered a situation like the following at some point in our careers: something either isn’t working right or could be working better. You’ve been through the process to understand the problem and identify solutions. (Check out my blog post “4 Steps to Efficiently Solve Problems” if you’re still working on understanding the problem.) Now it’s time to pick a solution—and you can’t get stakeholders to agree on one.

Database Performance Monitor Overview

SolarWinds Database Performance Monitor (DPM) provides deep database performance monitoring at scale, without overhead. Our SaaS-based platform helps increase system performance, team efficiency, and infrastructure cost savings by offering full visibility into major traditional, open-source, and cloud-native database such as Microsoft SQL, Azure SQL, MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, and more.