Operational access, production-data handling, and safe nonproduction practices.
22 associated posts19 primary posts
Let's start with a 7-minute demo video - I didn't edit this down because I want you to be able to see what happens in real time. In this video, I point the desktop version of Claude Code at a Github issue for the First Responder Kit and tell it to do the needful:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RI0EscPWYKs
You know how you put "https://" at the beginning of web site addresses, and your browser can magically talk to all kinds of web servers, all over the world? Well, the Model Context Protocol (MCP) is a standard for AI stuff to talk to other things. It's like http for AI. It's less than a…
I took your top-voted questions from https://pollgab.com/room/brento. At one point, my camera overheats - hang in there, I get it fixed in a few seconds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PC9JokmIkuM
Are your developers working with live production data, completely made-up synthetic data, or something in between? I posted a poll here on the blog and on a few of my social media feeds, and here were the results:
Note that the numbers can add up to more than 100% because folks could mark multiple choices if they had multiple teams with different approaches.
I was chatting with a client's DBA about this thought-provoking blog post about data governance in the age of generative AI. The DBA's concern was, "What if we hook up generative AI tools to the production database, and someone asks for, say, recommended salary ranges for our next CEO based on the current CEO's salary? Will the AI tool basically bypass our row-level security and give the querying person information that they shouldn't be allowed to see?"
Despite the continuous stream of data breaches, ransomware, and GDPR violations, some companies still aren't encrypting personally identifiable information (PII) inside our databases or backups.
I see this all the time when working with clients, but I can't exactly talk about that or give numbers, so I decided to take a highly unscientific poll on Twitter. I figure if DBAs are sitting around on social media, they're probably done with all the important parts of their job. The 147 votes came in:
Create a table and insert a couple of rows:
Then back up the database without using compression, and open up the backup file with a hex editor:
Earlier this week, I asked where your developers are getting their development databases from. The poll results are in:
9% of development happens on the production database server
57% are copying the production data to another server, and using it as-is
31% are copying the production data, but then masking/scrambling private data before developers get access to it
25% are using made-up data for development
It sounds really simple:
Capture a bunch of production queries
Replay those same queries over in a load test environment
Every now and then, you're going to need to run a query that takes a long time. You're going to want to make sure that it succeeds and that you can see the full output - even if your workstation disconnects - or maybe you want to check the status from home later.
You're going to be tempted to remote desktop directly into the SQL Server itself and run the query there.
Hi. I'm not Brent.
My name's Alex, and I care about databases, DevOps and data protection. Last year I gave a session on GroupBy all about how to do Database DevOps right. Now, dear reader, I'm going to give you a cheerful, three-step crash course about how to screw it all up.
Let's say someone - not you, dear reader, because you would surely never be this sloppy - is building a personal web site or a diary or a company or whatever:
[crayon-6a6eb88bb751f465013981/]
Yes, they should be encrypting passwords, and not storing ages, and certainly never storing identifying information like social security numbers. Unfortunately, that's just often not how it goes in the real world, as any recent headline will tell you.
Getting developers production data stinks DBAs are stuck in this annoying cycle where they need to give developers production, or production-like data, but... Production data can be huge. Hundreds of gigabytes if you're lucky, several terabytes if you're not. Then once it gets there, you have other considerations. Either you lock down Dev, or you…
First, what data do we have?
Do we store any personally identifiable data?
Does any of that data include children?
Do customers believe that this data will never be seen publicly?
Do customers believe that this data will never be seen by your employees?
Sometimes you need garbage
Not because DBAs are the IT equivalent of Oscar the Grouch, but maybe you want to post a question on a forum, and you don't want to use your own data. At least, you probably shouldn't just post your own data without masking it. But masking data is annoying, and by the time you get everything in order, someone's breathing down your neck for an answer.
So you've got a bunch of people using the SA account all over the place. It's hard-coded into connection strings, embedded in linked servers, and the password is on post-it notes throughout the data center.
Step 1: Create an alternative SA account.
In a perfect world, you'd create a minimally-privileged AD login that only has limited access to specific databases.
At first glance, SQL Server's transactional replication seems like it's useful for moving data around in all sorts of situations: it works in Standard Edition, it's not synchronous, and you can have multiple subscribers.
Why People Want Replication to Test and Pre-Production Environments
Everyone wants reports but nobody wants to build out a separate reporting server. What options do you have short of throwing up your hands in defeat? Join Jeremiah to learn about four SQL Server technologies that help with reporting in production. This session is for DBAs and developers looking for a place to get started with reporting against SQL Server.
The best way to improve your skills as a database professional is to practice. If you’re like me, you might even take that practice outside of the workplace and do a bit of homework on the side. You can’t take a copy of your production database home with you, so what can you do? Thankfully, the fine people Microsoft have put together a set of databases that you can download and play with.
Data masking, data scrambling, and just plain old obfuscation: these are ways to get developers access to production-quality data for testing purposes without actually giving them real production data. It's much harder than it looks, though. The Easy Part: Obfuscating Data Developers love working with production data. Today's privacy-concerned companies aren't quite so keen on…
