30 November 2017

Support for static data added to Source Control for Oracle

With the speed of software development increasing, more and more companies and organizations are recognizing that version controlling code is becoming as important for databases as it is for applications.

In recognition of this, Source Control for Oracle has been upgraded so that it now version controls static data within databases as well as database schemas.

Version 4 which has just been released links Oracle databases to source control servers like Git, Subversion and Team Foundation Server. Importantly, it now stores and shares reference data like lookup tables and metatables, enabling them to be version controlled alongside database code.

While a relatively small change, this is also an important one because everything necessary to update an Oracle database from its current state to the desired state can now be handled with the same version control platform used for applications.

This has been a widely requested feature because development teams want to optimize the way they update both their applications and their databases. With the new feature, Source Control for Oracle now can be used to deploy schema and static data changes within one tool.

The functionality is already a popular feature in SQL Source Control and the update puts Oracle users on a par with SQL Server users. This was another major driver for the change, because an increasing number of companies now use different database platforms to address varying business requirements. Users can now, for example, move from SQL Server to Oracle and still work with tools they are already familiar with.

It also means that if companies want to standardize their approach to database development by, for example, introducing DevOps practices like version control, they can do so across their whole estate of both SQL Server and Oracle databases, and have every team working in the same way.

Redgate’s State of Database DevOps Survey, released earlier this year, revealed that 80% of companies and organizations will have started applying DevOps practices to their software delivery within the next two years.

The upgrade of the Source Control for Oracle tool means that, whether SQL Server or Oracle – or a mixture of the two platforms – is the database of choice, it can still be included by starting the journey to DevOps with version controlling the database.

If you’d like to link your Oracle database to your source control server and ease database source control with Git, SVN and TFS, download a free and fully-functional 28-day trial of Source Control for Oracle.