Product articles

Defusing Flyway Validation Errors using Smarter Checksum Comparisons

This article provides a scripted SQL tokenizer script that quickly verifies whether a Flyway validation error is a real cause for concern, due to retrospective metadata changes, or just the result of a developer valiantly adding formatting and documentation to improve the code. If the changes are purely cosmetic, we can safely run Flyway repair to resume normal migrations. Read more

Simplifying Data Import and Export for Database Development

Extracting and importing data for development and testing is made trickier due to issues such as constraints, dependencies, and special data types. This article introduces a cross-RDBMS solution with JSON for data storage and PowerShell cmdlets that use ODBC to help automate extraction and import, and JSON Schema for validation. Just provide a DSN, and you’re good to go! Read more

Installing and Upgrading the Flyway CLI

This article demonstrates three ways to install and maintain the Flyway CLI. I start with the easiest way, which is to run it from Docker. Next, is a standard, manual installation on both Windows and Linux, complete with a PowerShell routine that uses aliases to make it easier to keep Flyway up to date and to switch between versions. Finally, I'll describe briefly the advantages and disadvantages of using a Package Manager like Chocolatey. Read more

The Importance of Access Checks and Controls in Database Development

This article illustrates the importance in any database development project of a 'multi-layered' approach to database access controls and security checks, based on the Principle of Least Privilege. It describes a security incident that was raised when databases related to a local development project were found to have been erroneously deployed to a remote test server. It explains the nature of the incident, what went wrong that allowed it to happen, and the measures that were put in place to prevent its recurrence. Read more