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
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
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
There are certain checks that need to be done after a database migration is complete. One good example of this is the check that a migration script, such as one that merges changes from a branch into main, doesn't cause 'invalid objects' (a.k.a. 'missing references') in your databases. I'll show you how to run this check, using sp_RefreshSQLModule, and incorporate it into a Flyway "after" migration script. Read more
Dave Poole explains the need for high quality database documentation and then demonstrates how to document the SQL Server database for a data catalog, in both HTML and Git Markdown, using SQL Doc, SQL Data Catalog, PowerShell, and a few helper scripts to ensure consistency and correctness. Read more
Phil Factor demonstrates why we occasionally need to 'baseline' a database, when automating database deployments with Flyway, and a simple way of reducing the number of migration files that are required for a build. Read more
This article provides SQL "bulk copy" routines to extract data from and load it into a SQL Server database, rapidly, and demonstrates a way to automatically bulk insert the test data in a Flyway build, using a SQL callback. Read more
How to customize a database deployment process using Flyway, demonstrating how to incorporate tasks such stamping a version number into the latest database build, or writing to the SQL Server log. Read more
Phil Factor explains how to get started with Flyway, as simply as possible, using PowerShell. This article provides a practice set of database automation scripts that will build a SQL Server database, and then update it, running a series of migrations scripts that make some schema alterations, and load the database with test data. Read more
SQL Multi Script can easily be persuaded to run queries at the server level rather than the database level. It is also able to combine results from many databases even if the results aren't identical but have some different columns. Phil Factor demonstrates how this works, when collecting a set of performance counters from all databases on a distribution list of servers. Read more