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Product articles SQL Change Automation Database Builds and Deployments
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
Database Deployments and Rocky Rollback Horrors: Where Does the New Data Go?
Phil Factor describes the problem of preserving data that is left 'in limbo' when you need to revert the database to a previous version that has no way of accommodating it. Read moreDatabase Build Blockers: Four-part Object References
Cross-server references keep cropping up as a problem for development and build. Phil Factor demonstrates how using linked server 'aliases' can get around these issues, even if the individual databases use four-part references within the code rather than synonyms. Read moreDatabase Updates: Roll Back or Fix Forward?
Phil Factor's take on the best ways to reverse or accelerate your way out of the problems caused by a failed database update. Read more
Database DevOps for Pragmatists: A Datafaction Case Study
Ami Adler, a Software Development Manager at Datafaction explains how they used Redgate tools, and others, to introduce automation and testing into their Database DevOps processes and so achieved a faster and more reliable deployment process for their application. Read moreQuestions about SQL Change Automation that you were Too Shy to Ask
Phil Factor takes on tricky SQL Change Automation questions about database builds, migrations, deployments and releases. Read moreDatabase Development with GitHub
How can you use GitHub to do team-based database development? This article proposes a process that splits development work into task-based GitHub branches, incorporates daily database builds and integration testing, and uses Redgate tools to automate tasks such as provisioning, database scripting, and testing. Read moreUsing Filters to Fine-tune Redgate Database Deployments
Filters are used by Redgate's SQL Compare, SQL Source Control, DLM Dashboard, and SQL Change Automation. A typical use for a filter is to work on just one schema within a database or just a limited set of tables and routines. You would also want to use a filter to exclude certain object, such as database users, from comparisons. Phil Factor explains how they work, and how to create, edit and then use them within the various Redgate tools. Read moreSQL Change Automation: Adding SQL Clone to the Mix
Tony Davis explores how SQL Change Automation is increasingly providing ways of working with SQL Clone, to improve the quality of testing for database changes. With SCA v4.3, developers can now use the SSMS plugin to create a clone of the target database, to be used as a reference database, or baseline, for the deployment project. Read moreHandling System-named Constraints in SQL Compare
If some of your database constraints have system-generated names, they can cause 'false positives' when comparing schemas and generating build scripts using SQL Compare or SQL Change Automation. Phil Factor explains the difficulties, and the Compare option you need to enable to avoid them. Read moreSimple Database Development with SQL Change Automation
SQL Change Automation makes automation simple enough that it can adapt to suit many different approaches to SQL Server database development. Phil Factor describes a project to update the Pubs database, using it in combination with a PowerShell function and to maintain in source control the build scripts, migration scripts and object-level scripts, for every version of the database. Read more
Getting Started with Automatic Database Branch Switching
Alexander Diab demonstrates how a team of developers can work on and test features in different branches of a SQL Server database development project, while their local development database automatically remains 'synchronized' with the current branch in version control. Read moreAllowing for manual checks and changes during database deployments
SQL Change Automation enables users to make database changes to production safely and efficiently using PowerShell cmdlets, which can be integrated easily into any release management tool. This article will show you how to automate database deployments safely, by using SQL Change Automation from within PowerShell scripts, and how a deployment script for a release can be checked and amended as part of the process. Read moreSQL Server Database Deployment: What Could Go Wrong?
Phil Factor tackles the tricky questions you will need to answer when deciding how to automate your SQL Server database builds and deployments with Redgate's development, version control and deployment tools. Read moreDeploying Data and Schema Together with SQL Compare or SQL Change Automation
You want to use SQL Compare or SQL Change Automation (SCA) to create or update a database, and at the same time ensure that its data is as you expect. You want to avoid running any additional PowerShell scripting every time you do it, and you want to keep everything in source control, including the data. You just want to keep everything simple. Phil Factor demonstrates how it's done, by generatingMERGE scripts from a stored procedure. Read more
Using Custom Deployment Scripts with SQL Compare or SQL Change Automation
Phil Factor describes how custom pre- and post-deployment scripts work, when doing state-based database deployments with SQL Compare or SQL Change Automation, and how you might use them to, for example, add a version number to the target database, specify its database settings, or stuff data into some tables. Read moreRecreating Databases from Scratch with SQL Change Automation
Phil Factor starts with the basics how to rebuild a set of development database from scratch, using SQL Change Automation, and then demonstrates how to check for any active sessions before rebuilding, import test data using BCP, and secure passwords if connecting to the target with SQL Server credentials. Read moreHandling Tricky Data Migrations during State-based Database Deployments
This article demonstrates how to use a 'state' approach to database source control, when the nature of the database changes cause you to hit difficulties with migrating existing data. These difficulties happen when the differences are such that it is impossible for any automated script to make the changes whilst preserving existing data. Read moreIntegrating SQL Server Tools into SQL Change Automation Deployments
Phil Factor shows how to integrate use of SQL Change Automation, SSMS registered servers, SMO, and BCP to automatically build or update a database on all servers in a group. Read moreYou just Build It don’t you? 12 Common Database Build Blockers
Database deployments, like the sheep of exasperated hill-farmers, often find strange and unexpected ways to self-destruct. Phil Factor describes the most common things that can go wrong, and how a reliable automated database build process can prevent messy accidents. Read moreDatabase Build Blockers: Cross-Server Database Dependencies
Phil Factor demonstrates how to tackle builds 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 moreResolving Cross Database Dependencies in SQL Change Automation using Local Databases or Clones
How to avoid database build failures, caused by circular cross-database object references, by restoring or provisioning copies of all required databases to the development, build, or test SQL Server instance. Read moreDatabase Build Blockers: Mutually Dependent Databases
Phil Factor demonstrates a clever way to create 'stub' objects, in SQL Change Automation pre-deployment scripts, in order to overcome the problems caused by 'missing objects' when building databases that have circular, or mutual, dependencies. In the subsequent deployment, SQL Change Automation fully builds every object in each of the databases, so all dependencies are fully tested. Read moreSimple SQL Change Automation Scripting: The Release Object
Once you understand the SCA data objects, it can give you a certain glow of to discover, suddenly, that SCA can do some complicated and time-consuming tasks with just a few lines of code. Phil Factor demonstrates how to get the most of SCA's Release object. Read moreSimple SQL Change Automation Scripting: Connections, iProjects and Builds
Phil Factor delves into some of SQL Change Automation's data objects, or artifacts, covering the DatabaseConnection, iProject and iBuildArtifact objects. He explains the useful information they contain and how to use them in a PowerShell-automated database delivery process. Read moreSQL Change Automation Scripting: Getting Data into a Target Database
Your strategy for loading a freshly built database with data will depend on how much you need. If just a few rows, then single-row INSERT statements will be fine, but for more than that you'll need to build insert the rows using native-format BCP. Fortunately, SQL Change Automation (SCA) can be used with either strategy, as Phil Factor demonstrates. Read moreStatic Data and Database Builds
Whichever way you wish to ensure that a database, when built, has all the data that will enable it to function properly, there are reasonably simple ways of doing it. Phil Factor explains the alternatives. Read moreSimple Steps in SQL Change Automation Scripting
Phil Factor demonstrates the bare essentials of SCA PowerShell scripts that can form the basis for an automated process for database delivery or help improve your current process. Read moreDatabase Delivery with Docker and SQL Change Automation
Phil Factor demonstrates how to integrate SQL Change Automation into containerized workflows, such as are typical of a microservices architecture. He shows how to automate database builds into a Linux SQL Server container running on Windows, and then backup the containerized database and restore it into dedicated containerized development copies for each developer and tester. Read moreRunning Linux SQL Server as a Container
Phil Factor starts a series of articles that will demonstrate the use of temporary SQL Server instances, running in Linux containers, into which we can deploy the latest database build, stocked with data, for development and testing work. This initial article shows how to set up a SQL Server instance inside a Linux Docker container, create some sample databases, and persist data locally. Read moreAutomating Builds from Source Control for the WideWorldImporters Database
Kendra Little shows how to get the WideWorldImporters database into version control, using SQL Source Control, and then set up an automated database build process, using Azure DevOps with SQL Change Automation. Read moreDatabase Continuous Integration with SQL Clone and SQL Change Automation
Phil Factor provides the basis for a Database Continuous Integration process, using SQL Change Automation to build the latest database, and then SQL Clone to distribute it to the various team-based servers that need it. Having honed the process, you can run it every time someone commits a database change. Read moreBuild and fill a database using JSON and SQL Change Automation
Phil Factor demonstrates how to export data from a database, as JSON files, validate it using JSON Schema, then build a fresh development copy of the database using SQL Change Automation, and import all the test data from the JSON files. Read moreDatabase Continuous Integration with the Redgate SQL Toolbelt and Azure DevOps
Alex Yates shows how to set up automated processes for SQL Server database source control, build and continuous integration using Redgate SQL Toolbelt, Git and Azure DevOps Read moreDatabase Development in Visual Studio using SQL Change Automation: Getting Started
Steve Jones shows how to set up a SQL Change Automation (SCA) project in Visual Studio, and import an existing database. As the team make database changes, either in SSMS or VS, they import them into the SCA project, which saves each change as a migration script that is then committed to source control. Read moreDocumenting your Database with SQL Change Automation
Phil Factor uses SQL Change Automation and PowerShell to verify that the source code for the current database version builds successfully and, if so, to generate web-based database documentation using SQL Doc. Read morePractical PowerShell Processes with SQL Change Automation
Starting from the object-level source code for a database, Phil Factor shows how SCA can create a NuGet build package, use it to migrate target database to the same version, and publish web-based database documentation, a report of what changed on the target and the results of a static code analysis assessment. Read moreDeploying Multiple Databases from Source Control using SQL Change Automation
How to automatically build multiple test databases, from source control, and then fill them with standard test data sets, using SQL Change Automation, BCP and some PowerShell magic. Read moreSQL Change Automation with PowerShell Scripts: getting up-and-running
Provides a PowerShell automation script that will build a SQL Server database from the scripts in source control, document the database and then deploy it as a NuGet package, using it to update the schema of a live database. Read moreSQL Code Analysis from a PowerShell Deployment Script
This article shows how to define SQL code analysis rules using SQL Prompt and them run them automatically from a PowerShell script, displaying the detected code issues in a handy HTML report. Read moreWhat is SQL Change Automation?
This article describes the basic principles of SQL Change Automation, and how it works to provide a consistent and repeatable way of automating as much as possible of the database build, test, and deployment processes. Read moreDatabase CI with Redgate SQL Change Automation, PowerShell and Jenkins
Alex Yates shows how to set up automated processes for SQL Server database source control, build and continuous integration using Redgate SQL Toolbelt, Subversion, and Jenkins Read moreRedgate Hub
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