Product articles

Integrating SQL Monitor into a Tier-1 Alert and Notification System

SQL Monitor provides detail-level diagnostic data that will allow an expert to drill down to establish the cause of, and a fix for, any database problem. However, with support for webhooks, it can also contribute alerts to the sort of "Tier 1" alerting and paging system that an operations team might use to get an immediate notification of an urgent problem, anywhere on the network, and then coordinate a timely response. Read more

Practical uses for Database Models with Flyway

A database model is a standard document that represents the logical design and structure of a database. If we save a model each time Flyway creates a new version of the database, then we can find out what's in each version, and get an overview of how the database structure changed between versions. This has all sorts of useful applications during development to help us automate those repetitive tasks that otherwise slow down delivery. Read more

Working with Flyway and Entity Framework Code First: Automation

This article will demonstrate how to automate a hybrid database change management system that uses Entity Framework Code First for development and Flyway for deployments. We automatically convert C# migrations, produced by EF, to the Flyway format and then use Flyway command line to deploy the migrations and save the 'object-level state' of each new database version, so we can track exactly which objects changed, and how, between versions. Read more

Test Data Management for Database Migrations

The main reason why database deployments fail is a lack of rigorous database testing, and the main reason this task is so often avoided, or delayed, is the difficulties of creating and managing all the required test data. This article will help you understand the steps to better test data management, as part of a database emigration strategy. It explains the different types of data required and why, and the most efficient way to create, load and switch between the different required data sets. Read more

Infrequently Asked Questions About Flyway

You can have Flyway up and running in minutes if you're a solo developer managing a single database. However, as you seek to 'scale up' Flyway to accommodate more complex database systems, team-based development, and stricter quality controls, you'll need to tackle some knottier questions. Without adequate answers, tasks such as multi-database management, automation and workflow, and Continuous Integration will be difficult. Hopefully, this article will help. Read more

Managing PostgreSQL Extensions Using Flyway

Any reliable DevOps deployment process must not only deliver the right database code but also ensure that the correct conditions exist for the deployment to succeed. For PostgreSQL databases, this includes ensuring that any extensions on which the database code relies are installed, and at the correct version. Fortunately, Flyway will automatically track which extensions are installed on a database and at what version, so we can 'propagate' these changes accurately during deployments and avoid inconsistencies in database behavior and even application breakages. Read more