Creating Idempotent DDL Scripts for Database Migrations

How to write idempotent DDL scripts that Flyway can run several times on a database, such as after a hotfix has already been applied directly to the production database, without causing errors. Read more

Finding Dependencies in SQL Server Databases using SQL Dependency Tracker

Before you alter a database object, you need to understand what other objects will be affected. This article shows how to generate a simple dependency diagram that reveals both those objects that reference the target object, and those referenced by it, and includes foreign key references, column references and all the other details you need. Read more

Running Dynamic Code Quality Checks on Flyway Databases: Table Smells

How to extend the range of SQL code analysis, during database development, to include dynamic analysis of the database metadata. This will allow regular checks for problems with the design of your tables and indexes ("table smells") that can affect database performance and data integrity. Read more

How to Generate Fake Test Data for SQL Server

How to use a SQL random data generator to fill SQL Server tables with realistic test data, to shift left database unit testing, integration testing and performance testing so that it is performed during the early stages of database development. Read more

Detecting Database Drift during Flyway Database Development

How to detect database drift prior to running a database migration, so that you can be certain that a database hasn't been subject to any 'uncontrolled' changes that could affect the migration or result in untested changes being deployed to production. Read more

Running SQL Code Analysis during Flyway Migrations

A set of PowerShell automation script tasks for running database build and migrations tasks. This article describes the SQL code analysis task, which will check the syntax of the SQL code in your databases and your migration scripts for 'code smells'. Read more

Monitoring Azure SQL Managed Instances

SQL Monitor v11.1 now provides full monitoring support for Azure SQL Managed Instances, the goal being to provide a monitoring service that is as consistent as is technically possible to what SQL Monitor offers for 'on-premises' servers. Read more

Creating Database Build Artifacts when Running Flyway Migrations

This article provides PowerShell automation scripts for running Flyway database migrations. These scripts use SQL Compare to automatically generate all the required database build artifacts in the version control system, for each Flyway deployment. Read more

Moving from application automation to true DevOps by including the database

This article explains the challenges of DevOps automation for databases, starting with how to manage the database, as a set of SQL scripts, in the version control system, and then how to start building an integrated and automated script pipeline for continuously testing and deploying database schema changes, alongside the application code. Read more