Upgrading databases without losing local modifications

I am a freelance developer who runs my own company called Web Garden Limited. I've been using Umbraco since 2007 to create elegant and functional websites for corporate clients. I chose to focus my business on Umbraco because it is a joy to develop with, and a joy for my clients to use.

I have been developing my latest site using nightly builds of Umbraco version 4. When the latest release candidate was published I needed to upgrade the schema and data of my local database to match the one supplied with the release candidate. However, my database also contained my own content which needed to survive the upgrade.

I used Red Gate's SQL Data Compare to compare the databases to see which table rows were different. I then chose which rows to copy across to the new database, without affecting my own data.

SQL Data Compare allowed me to back up both databases before performing any actions, and it saved a copy of the SQL script that was run so I could see exactly what had been done. All updates were run in a transaction as well. This ensured that if any errors occurred, the database wouldn't be left in an unknown state.

As it turns out, I only needed to copy two rows an entry in the cmsDataTypePreValues table and one from the umbracoUserLogins table across from the latest version to my database to bring me completely up to date.

This solved my problem quickly and easily and I was free to move on to the real work of developing the site using the latest Umbraco release candidate. " David Conlisk, Web Garden Limited