Before

Working on a project that includes a database implies dealing with the schema changes and versions. The problem is that the tools that can help you are pretty expensive and (from my experience) not 100% reliable. It was so bad that my team and I developed our own database versioning mechanism and even started working on a tool to automate it.

What I want

I want to be able to deal with the database schema objects the same way i deal with the code files - specifically, I want to be able to see a svn history for them.

I want to be able to deploy a new version of the database to test and production servers AUTOMATICALLY, without worrying about data loss.

I want to be able to restore an old backup (like one with specific test data) of the database and update it to the latest version.

I want to keep the developer, test and production databases in sync (that is, the schema is the same for the same version).

I want the configuration data (read-only data like states and cities) to be included in the versioning system. More...

Databator is a tool I’m working on that enables you to manage the versioning of your database based on the method described here.

This first version allows you to:

• Create an project for a new or existing database
• Add versioned changes to the database
• Use command line scripts to update, backup or restore the database (handy for Continuous Integration builds)
• Conciliate your changes with those made by tour team mates
• Work in branches and then merge your changes

The final scope of this tool will include:

• Integration with SVN
• Synchronization with Visual Studio Database projects (.dbp)
• Apply or Rollback your updates directly from the UI
• History for each DB Object (just like code files)
• Helpers for creating update scripts (specific cases)
• Automatic rollback script generation (specific cases)

I recommend that you check the Getting Started Guide to get an idea about how this tool can help you optimize your database versioning.

You can download Databator v0.1 from here: Databator0.1.zip (982.01 kb)