Code Aperture

Build a VM Test Lab using Unraid - Working From Home Part I

Understanding how hypervisors work is key to setting up a test lab on a home server. In this article, read about lessons I learned setting up a VM test lab on Unraid.

RedGate

Infrastructure: Setup Octopus Deploy to use Redgate DLM Automation

Automated database deployments is a critical aspect of any continuous integration pipeline. The tooling today has made it very easy to get that added, especially if you use Octopus Deploy and Redgate DLM Automation. It is very easy to add the necessary step templates into Octopus Deploy to get Redgate

Automation

Self Signed Certificates and Sub-Domains with Local IIS - Automated Developer Machine Setup Part III

As any developer can tell you, having their machine match production as close as possible is key. A lot of websites today now make use of subdomains, IE platform.mysite.com. In addition, it is very rare to run across a website today which doesn't use SSL. There is just

Visual Studio

Run Visual Studio always as administrator in Windows 10

If you plan on using Visual Studio with IIS it will need to run as an administrator. This is so Visual Studio can interact with IIS to set up the necessary virtual directories. If you don't run Visual Studio as an administrator then it won't even load the ASP.NET

Automated Developer Machine Setup - Part II - Developer Tool Suite

The previous post in this series talked about why it is important to automate developer machine setup as well as getting Windows configured using DISM. This article will dive into automating the install of a common developer tool suite. A Common Time-Suck: The Browse/Download Loop Here is a common

Home Office

Home Office Upgrade - Winter 2017 / 2018

Over the Christmas holiday, I had some time off. At first, I thought I might be able to get some bike rides in. At the beginning of the month, the temperature averaged around 45 degrees Fahrenheit. If the sun is out and there is no wind I can easily get

Automation

Automated Developer Machine Setup - Part I - Introduction and DISM

It seems no matter where you work as a developer, the first day or two is all about setting up the company issued laptop with the necessary tools to do the job. Everyone recognizes how much pain in the ass that is, and how much time is wasted doing it.

RedGate

Multi-Thread Redgate DLM Deployments

The time had finally come. It was time to run the Redgate automated database deployment process in production for the first time. All we had to do was click the deploy button in Octopus Deploy, and we would be on our way. The button was pressed, and we were on

Picking the right Azure VM size using Load Testing

Properly configured, the cloud can be very cost effective. When misconfigured, the cloud is very expensive. Recently I helped the company I work for make the move from AWS to Azure. Part of that move was dialing-in the size of the VMs. The major cloud providers, AWS, Azure, Google, and

RedGate

Real-World Use Case for Redgate SQL Data Generator

At some point during the development lifecycle someone, be it a developer, QA, or a business owner, asks for "real" data to test against. Typically this is for two reasons, they want the volume of data to match production, or the "fake" data doesn't make any

RedGate

Increased Database Security: Another Reason to Adopt DevOps

The tooling necessary to incorporate DevOps practices is already out there. There are many different flavors of build tools, Jenkins, TeamCity, VSTS, AppVeyor, and Bamboo. Release management is covered by Octopus Deploy, Release Management, and Bamboo. And finally, database automation tooling provided by Redgate SQL Toolbelt and Microsoft SSDT. The

RedGate

Redgate SQL Toolbelt over Microsoft SSDT: My Biased Opinion

Back in the article How Redgate Helped Define our Process, there was this small blurb about SSDT: Microsoft SSDT Tooling Considered - the increased cost of licenses forced us to take a hard look at Microsoft's SSDT tooling. Could it do what Redgate did? Could we build additional functionality around

Building .NET Standard Libraries with Visual Studio 2017

Thanks to the Visual Studio 2017, creating .NET Standard Class Libraries is easier than ever. While it is easy, there are few tips and tricks to help make the process as smooth as possible. This is the first in a series of posts to generate a class library for a

Introducing .NET Standard For The Enterprise

Code reuse is near the top, if not at the top, of my priority list. In the .NET world, that can mean only one thing, .NET Standard. Until a few months ago, the chance to experiment with it for the enterprise had not yet presented itself to me. Now that

devops

Automated Deployments is Mission Critical

In my late twenties, I was hired to work on a project for a new client. The project was to add a lot of new features to a SaaS application. The client was the largest player in its particular industry and wanted a lot of customizations. After several months of

RedGate

Using Redgate ANTS Memory Profiler Part I - The Fundementals

Redgate's ANTS Memory Profiler is a fantastic tool to help track potential memory leaks. But, it is important to have realistic expectations when getting started using the tool. When used properly, the tool can be very helpful in tracking down memory leaks. By no means is it a silver bullet.

readable code

Readable If/Then Statements

A major passion of mine is readable code. When the code is easy to read, it is easy to maintain. It is easy to test. In a lot of the projects we work on, the code we write ends up living for over ten years. One area I've noticed developers

NewRelic

Setup Dashboards with New Relic Insights

My team has a New Relic Insights dashboard up in our area on a large screen. As I was talking to someone, I noticed the error count jump from 10 to 20 to 40 and 80 in a manner of minutes. Something was not right. That is very abnormal. We

devops

Setup Alerts Through New Relic

A few weeks ago a key component the loan origination system my team is responsible for at Farm Credit Services of America had a problem. The loan origination system's main REST API calls this component when a user performs a certain action. Concerning overall usage, this key component is used

vsts

8 Tips for Creating VSTS Tasks

Microsoft has made their VSTS (Visual Studio Team System) build system very flexible. It doesn't matter if you host it on-premise or in the cloud, you can easily extend out functionality by importing existing custom tasks through the marketplace or write your own custom tasks. By default, the custom tasks

devops

DevOps - Smaller Builds

As stated in a previous article, one of the goals we are focusing on right now is deploying to pre-production every 45 minutes. At first blush, that seems a bit fast. When I broached it with my team they (rightfully) pointed our current CI build takes 15 minutes to build,

devops

DevOps - Start of Collaboration

In a recent meeting of the Octopus Deploy Workgroup, I proposed the question "what do we have to change in our process to be able to deploy to pre-production every 45 minutes?" The Octopus Deploy Workgroup was created a year ago when Farm Credit Services of America decided

devops

DevOps - Introduction to Streamlined Deployments

As stated in the previous article, DevOps is the answer to the question, "what do I have to change in my process to be able to and want to deploy to production 10 times a day with zero downtime?" The number 10 was not just some random number

Continuous Delivery

DevOps Introduction

For the longest time, I thought DevOps meant the developers were the ones who took over server maintenance from an operations team, be it a web admin or DBA. The only way for that to happen was to be up in the cloud. After all, the name says it all,

RedGate

Redgate Command Line Tools

One of the less common known facts about Redgate's DLM Automation suite is purchasing license grants the purchaser the right to use to command line versions of SQL Data Compare and SQL Compare. Seems strange, right? Well when you really boil it down to the basic parts, the new DLM