SQL Compare for version control?

petteroe

Hi,

I run a small business, but I am trying to adopt some of the more useful procedures of bigger companies, for example, finally implementing a version control system for our SQL server databases.

I have SQL compare 5. Can I use this for version control? I am using Source Safe 2005 (probably Team Server as soon as I hire another person) for our source code version control.

Ideally, I would like to add our database stuff to source safe just as other source code, label it, version it and then deploy everything to the production environment. If things fail, I can go back to an earlier label, including database stuff and roll back.

Is this possible, and if yes, can you please send me a step-by-step guide on how to do it...


Thanks,


Morten

richardjm

You might want to check out a little free utility that I've written that integrates with source control systems where you store the database snapshot.

Have a read of...

http://blogs.red-gate.com/blogs/richard ... 8/258.aspx

...to see if this will help you.


Hope this helps.

petteroe

Thanks Richard,

I have been playing soldier in the national guard this week, so I haven't gotten around to testing your app yet.

Can I use the snapshot of the database to revert back to an earlier scheme without loosing data (except for the obvious situations where this operation will remove columns etc)


Morten

richardjm

petteroe wrote:

Thanks Richard,

I have been playing soldier in the national guard this week, so I haven't gotten around to testing your app yet.

Can I use the snapshot of the database to revert back to an earlier scheme without loosing data (except for the obvious situations where this operation will remove columns etc)


Morten

Yes you can - using SQL Compare. Just use the snapshot as the source and your database as the destination. The utility I mentioned is just a way to get a quick view on what has changed and won't produce any SQL.

Dan F

richardjm wrote:

http://blogs.red-gate.com/blogs/richard ... 8/258.aspx

Hiya Richard. The utility sounds great, but when using it on snapshots created with V5, I get

Unexpected Exception:
The database snapshot was saved by a newer version of SQL Compare

Any chance of a recompile for V5 snapshots? I'd love to use this in our Vault server for sure!

richardjm

Dan F wrote:

richardjm wrote:

http://blogs.red-gate.com/blogs/richard ... 8/258.aspx

Hiya Richard. The utility sounds great, but when using it on snapshots created with V5, I get

Unexpected Exception:
The database snapshot was saved by a newer version of SQL Compare

Any chance of a recompile for V5 snapshots? I'd love to use this in our Vault server for sure!

Just to let you know in case you've not found out already. I've done a recompile that lets Scream work with v5.05/5.1/5.2 releases. You can get instructions on how to get it from here...[/url]

Hope this helps.

Dan F

Sure does, thanks Richard!