How to create and manage 'stub' objects, in Flyway migrations, in order to overcome build failures caused by circular, or mutual, dependencies between objects in different databases. The technique should be applicable to any RDBMS. Read more
How to tackle database development in Flyway when databases make cross-server references. The technique uses synonyms to represent the remote objects, and local 'stub' objects to overcome the problems caused by 'missing references' when building the individual objects. Read more
Table manifests, and object manifests, which are just ordered lists, are a very useful output from and development database build. This article show how to generate a table manifest in SQL, and once you have it, you'll start to find several uses for it, besides the build process. Read more
Flyway, especially Flyway Teams edition, can be used in several different ways to accommodate a database development that was originally based on builds rather than migrations. This article explores four different ways to use Flyway to build a particular version of a database, from the ground up, using a single migration script. It should help teams select the best way to incorporate Flyway into an existing database build system, during development, while benefitting from use of Flyway's versioned migration system for deployments and releases. Read more
Use Flyway to run your database migrations, each time automatically creating a SQL Change Automation release object to provide object-level scripts and a build script for the new version, along with change reports and code analysis reports. Read more
How to quickly and automatically bulk load test data once Flyway Teams completes a database migration. A baseline migration script creates the empty database version, which then triggers a PowerShell callback script that bulk loads in the right version of the data. It is a very fast way to provision multiple copies of a specific database version, complete with data, for ad-hoc or automated testing. Read more
Flyway Teams baseline migration scripts are a simple and fast way to deploy new copies of a database, at a specific version, for testing work, or to create a new branch during development. Read more
During the development cycle, the mechanics of reliable delivery must not be allowed to dominate the design work. With script callbacks in Flyway Teams, many of the development tasks required during a database migration can happen automatically, producing reports, build scripts, code reviews, or documentation. Read more
How to use Flyway configuration files to minimize typing during ad-hoc development from PowerShell or DOS; you just type in the Flyway commands you need and hit "go" and the config files take care of all the tiresome connection, authentication and project details. Read more
This article explains the fastest ways to restore the previous version of the database, to recover from a failed Flyway migration that leaves the database in an indeterminate state, and then how to adapt your database development process to avoid these problems. Read more
How Flyway Enterprise will help you ensure that databases and applications can grow and develop in step, and to implement a workflow for delivery of database changes that is resilient, repeatable, fast and visible. Read more
How to create and maintain a 'data dictionary' for your SQL Server databases, in JSON format, which you can then use to add and update the table descriptions, whenever you build a new version using Flyway. Read more
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
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 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
During development you need a fast, automated way to build multiple copies of a database on any development or test server, with each database at the right version. This article provides a PowerShell automation script for Flyway that will do the job. Read more
Describing the two main use cases for occasional "cherry picking" of Flyway database migration scripts: back-filling emergency production hotfixes to version control and managing parallel development streams. Read more
How to send Flyway logging and error output to JSON and consume it in PowerShell to produce ad-hoc database migrations reports, including any errors that occurred, the version of the database, runtimes for each migration script and more. 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
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
Phil Factor provides SQL routines to extract data from and load data into a SQL Server database, using BCP, and then a PowerShell automation script that uses Flyway to automatically build a database, from scratch and then fill it with data, ready for testing. 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
This article describes the principles of using Flyway migrations to build a database from scripts, to a specified version, and to track, manage and apply all database changes. Read more