Author Archive for Alex Yates

Speaking Mentors: A new chapter

A few years back, one of my tweets went a little viral (relative to my other tweets). So you want to do a talk at a conference but you’ve never done it before and you are nervous or want some help? This is me offering you my time to help. No charge, just honest goodwill. Just reply to this tweet…

Seeking a Senior Platform Engineer role

Building DLM Consultants has been a hugely rewarding journey. I’ve learned so much, and I’ve had a whole bunch of great experiences. It’s been far more profitable than I ever thought it would be. Business continues to run just fine. But, I’m tired of consultant life. During the first couple of years of DLM I was always at airports. I…

Data Relay Leeds, 2017

Data Relay: Passing the torch

In 2016, Alex Whittles asked me to join the (then) SQL Relay team. They needed someone to take over sponsorship and I was flattered they felt I was the best person for the job. I jumped at the opportunity. I love Data Relay’s goal of bringing free, in-person data conferences to cities and communities that otherwise wouldn’t attract these sorts…

PowerShell: Write-Host or Write-Output?

Use Write-Output. (Almost all the time.) (You can probably stop reading now if you like.) Generally, use Write-Host if you want to make the text a funny colour etc – but that’s not always supported anyway. If you want to read more and learn about various edge cases etc, cool. Lot’s of people have written much longer blog posts on…

Job done

In 2016 I quit Redgate. I sent this email to my team when I left. It was scary and emotional to leave the best job of my life and to step out into the big, wide world as my own boss. Earlier this year I started a temporary part-time contract with them to fill a short-term vacancy in their pre-sales…

#tsql2sday #119 write-up

First, I’d like to say thanks. First to Adam Machanic (b|t) for starting #tsql2sday, second to Steve Jones (b|t) for co-ordinating it, but most importantly to all the people who contributed, listed below. I asked people to write about something in their IT careers that they had changed your mind about. What was your original opinion? Why did you believe…

Continuous Database Deployment… to Production. #tsql2sday #119

This post is part of the 119th #tsql2sday blog party, which was started by Adam Machanic and is co-ordinated by Steve Jones. For more info, check out the website.  Our host this week is (ahem…) me. Here’s the topic: Changing your mind. For my contribution, I want to talk about continuous database deployment to production. Defining Continuous Deployment A point…

T-SQL Tuesday #119 – Changing your mind

This month I have the honour of hosting T-SQL Tuesday, the monthly blog party started by Adam Machanic and co-ordinated by Steve Jones. Bringing people together I’m excited about DevOps. I first heard the term as a sales person at an IT company. I recognised the gulf between the sales and tech silos at my company and I could observe…