How to Write and Debug a PowerShell Callback for Flyway Migrations

We can use callbacks in Flyway to plug into any part of the Flyway lifecycle and run various database tasks before or after a particular event takes place. In this article I've tried to assemble a 'best practice' guide for writing callbacks to ensure that the scripts always behave predictably, and so that when things go awry the cause is easy to spot, without hours of painful scrolling through Flyway output. Read more

Managing Test Datasets for a Database: What’s Required?

The management of datasets is intrinsic to effective team-based database development. This article reviews what's required of test datasets in database development and then proposes a system of managing them in a migration-based approach that adopts a common standard for their storage, using JSON. Read more

Integrating Redgate Monitor Alerts with New Relic

This article demonstrates how to use a script notification, in PowerShell, to automatically send database alerts raised by Redgate Monitor as incidents to New Relic. This simple integration makes it easy to feed the detailed diagnostics that only a specialized database monitoring system such as Redgate Monitor provides, and the DBA team relies on for a rapid response, into a single, organization-wide incident management system. Read more

Planning a Database Testing Strategy for Flyway

With Flyway, you can adopt a test-driven development strategy that will allow you to test and evaluate databases, and database objects, at every phase of the database development lifecycle. The further down the delivery pipeline that bugs appear, the more costly in time and resources they are to fix. This approach will allow you to catch many of them before the database change even gets committed to version control, making a continuous delivery process much easier to adopt and sustain. Read more

Running DOS Scripts as Callbacks with Flyway

How to perform a range of useful database tasks automatically during Flyway migrations, using a DOS callback script. We provide a demo script that will collect all the necessary information from Flyway, run the task and then save any file with the appropriate name. You can use it to automate tasks such creating backups or DACPACs or generating a build script, each time Flyway creates a new database version. Read more

Automated Provisioning of Multi-Database Environments in a Flyway Development

This article describes how we implemented lightweight database provisioning, using clones, within an automated Flyway release process . It allows users to self-serve personal copies of a complex multi-database system, in a way that is transparent, supports flexible Git branching and merging strategies and agile releases, but does not compromise data security nor add significant admin overhead. Read more

Using ODBC in PowerShell Scripts and Callbacks

Flyway connects to database using JDBC, but when we're automating Flyway with PowerShell, we can't use JDBC directly to get access to the metadata we need to add useful reports and other functionality to Flyway's build and migration processes. This article demonstrates how to get what we need using ODBC from our PowerShell scripts, via a DSN. Read more

Failed Database Deployments: Roll Back or Fix Forward?

This article explains the different ways to reverse or accelerate your way out of the problems caused by a failed database deployment, where a technique such as feature flags fits into your strategy, and how Flyway is designed to help you ensure both that you're fully prepared to take swift remedial measures, and that you minimize the need to use them. Read more

Passing Parameters and Settings to Flyway Scripts

This article explains the various ways of using placeholders to pass information and settings to any Flyway script, to gain bit of extra flexibility in a migration run., providing examples of conditional execution, running SQL expressions using environment variables and even one of using placeholders in a callback to send a warning notification to your phone, after a migration completes. Read more

Code Visibility: Browsing through Flyway Migration Files

If you can convert a SQL file to HTML, then you can inspect your Flyway migration files in a browser. This is especially useful if your SQL is color-coded with the same conventions as it was in your IDE. It is even better still if your browser can allow you to scan through many files, moving from file to file with a single click. This article demonstrates how to do this with a few PowerShell scripts. Read more

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