Database Version Drift happens when the state of your (dev|test|prod) database deviates from the state of the source files in version control. This article explains how this happens in your development process and what measures can prevent it. — What is database version drift? Making a small manual hotfix in production without adding it to the version control system or changing an issue in version control without deploying it into production is how database version drift happens. It can be something small like correcting a typo or adding a commit into a procedure directly…

Decoupling allows having different release cycles for the application and the database. One way of decoupling your Java application from your Oracle database can be done by using Oracles’ Edition Based Redefinition (EBR) feature. This article shows how to use EBR and switch editions when using JPA. — EBR Basics Upgrading database applications can be demanding. A significant challenge is that long downtimes cannot be scheduled often or during office hours. Therefore, such applications require online upgrades so that changes can be rolled out and monitored during the business day. …

Linting plays a central part in code quality assurance. But often, it is not done for infrastructure code. This article explains how to set up linting in your Ansible / Shell / Python project. — What is Linting? Linting is a type of static code analysis that checks if code fulfils predefined rules and standards. Integrated into an automated process, e.g. a continuous integration run after every commit in a repository, helps developers keep the code quality high.

When it comes to data storage solutions, there’s no one size fits all. The data storage landscape offers a plethora of technologies. Some are single-purpose data stores; others are multi-purpose databases. — We generally differ between single-purpose data storage solutions and multi-purpose data storage solutions. A subset of this broad data storage landscape shows the following Figure. But how do you choose the right one?

Almost every developer worked in a project or company that implemented DevOps or worked towards a DevOps strategy. Far too often, basic things are done wrong while implementing DevOps. This article explains five Antipatterns that happen when DevOps is approached the wrong way. — What is DevOps DevOps is a combination of Development and Operations. The goal of DevOps is that a software team can develop and run their piece of software independently over the whole application lifecycle, as shown in the image below.

Efficient development processes are based on automated processes to test, integrate, and deploy applications into production. With typical applications, this is quite an easy task. For database applications, it’s a bit harder. This article explains why and how to execute this process successfully. — Some time ago, I wrote about the Challenges in Automating Multi-Schema Database Deployments. It was about why automated database deployments are crucial to efficient development processes and why they are challenging to establish with multi-schema applications.

Data Marts and the Data Warehouse (DWH) are usually developed by different teams. Both teams want to build their application as independently as possible. To achieve this, a versioned access layer between the DWH and the data marts comes in handy. …

Camunda BPM workflows are useful to model processes — APEX is excellent for rapid application development — Combining both in a project showed what the challenges and possibilities are in process automation. 📃 Most applications in companies are form-based. They require the user to add, edit or delete data in…

For data analysis, it is convenient to have a big dataset. To handle data efficiently, it is best if the data remains inside the database. This article shows how you can set up RStudio together with ROracle and your Oracle Autonomous Database. To start with your installation, you have to…