SQL Server 2005 - Syncing development/production databases

Question

I\'ve got a rather large SQL Server 2005 database that is under constant development. Every so often, I either get a new developer or need to deploy wide-scale schema change

Answer 1

You could just backup and restore using the standard SQL Server functions.
That's what we do. We run a daily backup on the production server at 9 pm anyway.

Then at 11 pm, we run a SQL Server Agent job on the test server which restores the last backup from the production server ("RESTORE DATABASE ...").

The only con is: you have to get used to the fact that all changes you make in the test database are away the next morning :-)