Schema migration with Entity Framework Code First

With the introduction of a Code First approach, more people are becoming interested in using the Entity Framework (EF) to build their data driven applications. EF offers the opportunity for development to become faster and more agile, as well freeing application-centric developers from the need to spend hours grappling with database schemas.

But the situation isn't perfect. Although EF will take care of schemas for you, the approach of creating a new database for each deployment is far from ideal for production databases. When you need to persist data, or just ensure up-time, dropping and re-creating your database isn't likely to be viable.

EF Code First still needs a migration and deployment solution.

The good news is that that the tried and tested, industry-standard approach of migrating and deploying with SQL Compare and SQL Data Compare works just as well for EF development as it does for conventional SQL development.

SQL Compare automatically creates a migration script so you can update a database in your staging or production environment with the changes from your latest build. The SQL Compare command line interface allows you to automate this process, so you can also set up continuous integration. So you can work with the Entity Framework as you ordinarily would, and have your migration scripts created automatically.

To try it yourself, Download a free trial of SQL Compare