10Aug 2020 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

My First Hand-built AWS CodePipeline

AWS, Deployment Pipelines
I've just completed my first, successful, AWS CodePipeline. I'm sorry to say it took me weeks to figure out just how simple this was. Frankly, it's embarrassing. I already posted how I used the example code supplied by AWS to build a full blown CI/CD process. However, I went back into all the tools and tore it all apart so that I could build it, myself, by hand, in order to better understand it. Code All The Things Let's first talk about the tools I used. I have my code sourced in CodeCommit. It's Git. I'm using AWS CodePipeline to manage the flow control. It's triggered by a commit to the main branch. It sets up an Ubuntu instance that I can use to do things with (you can use…
Read More
30Jul 2020 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

Announcing: AWS Community Builders

AWS
I'm excited to be able to announce that the AWS Community Builders, a new program for those who help out with AWS technologies, has been launched. You can read the details here. I'm also excited to announce that I'm one of the first set of Builders in this new community. Building AWS Community Builders As I've worked to add AWS to my toolbox, both in the DevOps area and in the data management area, I've been impressed with the technology. I've also been impressed with the help you can get on it out on the interwebs. However, there wasn't any kind of organizing force behind the community. Different people were posting various things, but it was unclear how to tell who had a real finger on the pulse. AWS reached…
Read More
20Jul 2020 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

AWS Deployment Pipelines

AWS, Deployment Pipelines
I'm at the just barely scratching the surface level of getting started with AWS Deployment Pipelines. Of course, the first thing I want to do with them is get a database deployed. A couple of web searches and I find this bit of documentation from the AWS team. Perfect. Not only is this using AWS tools all the way from Commit (source control) to Build (automation) to Deploy (pipelines), but it's using Flyway for the magic sauce of the database deployment (database deployments need magic sauce). Because I'm just learning, it actually took me two days to get to the point where this code was working. Or rather, where it was supposed to work. There's one small bit missing or changed since that article was published. If you're attempting this,…
Read More
29Jun 2020 by Grant Fritchey 3 Comments

SQL Server Backups on AWS RDS

RDS
One of the things I love the most about Platform as a Service offerings is the fact that it makes it so I don't have to do silly things backup SQL Server databases on RDS. However! I'm also a paranoid control freak, aka, a DBA. While I appreciate that AWS has a good backup process and I can test it through recovery of my databases, I still want to do my own backups under some circumstances. Can I backup SQL Server databases on RDS? No and yes. Let's talk about it. Backup SQL Server Databases on RDS I have an RDS SQL Server instance running right now on AWS. I can connect up to it and run the following command: BACKUP DATABASE HamShackRadio; Which results in the following: Msg 262,…
Read More
08Jun 2020 by Grant Fritchey 3 Comments

AWS RDS and SQL Server Deadlocks

AWS, RDS
What's the story with AWS RDS and SQL Server deadlocks? I'm approaching AWS RDS like I was taking on a new role at a new organization. Do we have backups in place? Yes, great. Can I test them? Yes. Do they meet our RTO & RPO? Yes. Moving on. What have we got for monitoring? AWS RDS has a good percentage of the fundamentals. Now, it's laid out a little oddly. You have the stuff going through CloudWatch which is largely OS oriented. Then you have enhanced monitoring, which you have to turn on, which covers eight key metrics for SQL Server. Finally, you can enable Performance Insights which gives you metrics on query behaviors (and yeah, any or all of these may be the subject of upcoming blog posts).…
Read More
02Jun 2020 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

Fun Fact: AWS RDS and system_health

AWS, RDS
Did you know that the system_health Extended Event session was running in your RDS instances? Well, it is. HOWEVER. This query, which works perfectly fine on my on premises instance of SQL Server, will fail: SELECT @path = dosdlc.path FROM sys.dm_os_server_diagnostics_log_configurations AS dosdlc; SELECT @path = @path + N'system_health_*'; WITH fxd AS (SELECT CAST(fx.event_data AS XML) AS Event_Data FROM sys.fn_xe_file_target_read_file(@path, NULL, NULL, NULL) AS fx ) SELECT dl.deadlockgraph FROM ( SELECT dl.query('.') AS deadlockgraph FROM fxd CROSS APPLY event_data.nodes('(/event/data/value/deadlock)') AS d(dl) ) AS dl; Whereas, thanks to Aaron Bertrand, this query will work just fine: WITH fxd AS (SELECT CAST(fx.event_data AS XML) AS Event_Data FROM sys.fn_xe_file_target_read_file(N'system_health*.xel', NULL, NULL, NULL) AS fx ) SELECT dl.deadlockgraph FROM ( SELECT dl.query('.') AS deadlockgraph FROM fxd CROSS APPLY event_data.nodes('(/event/data/value/deadlock)') AS d(dl) ) AS dl;…
Read More
01Jun 2020 by Grant Fritchey 4 Comments

Getting Started on AWS RDS

AWS, RDS
I'm expanding my skill set into AWS in a big way. So, one of the things I do when I'm learning a technology is to write blog posts about that tech. So, prepare yourself for a bunch of info on AWS. I'll be working with RDS, which will include SQL Server & PostgreSQL for certain. I'll also be posting quite a bit on AWS DevOps as I get into it. The usual stuff, including SQL Server, query tuning, Extended Events, Azure, Azure DevOps, and all the rest is not going away. I'm just adding another topic. Today, we're getting started on AWS RDS. Creating an RDS Instance The thing is, there's a lot of documentation available on getting started on AWS RDS, directly from Amazon. It's embedded neatly into the…
Read More