How to properly manage database deployment with SSDT and Visual Studio 2012 Database Projects?

Question

I\'m in the research phase trying to adopt 2012 Database Projects on an existing small project. I\'m a C# developer, not a DBA, so I\'m not particularly fluent with best practic

Answer 1

I haven't really found any more useful information on the subject but I've spent some time getting to know the tools, tinkering and playing, and I think I've come up with some acceptable answers to my question. These aren't necessarily the best answers. I still don't know if there are other mechanisms or best practices to better support these scenarios, but here's what I've come up with:

The Pre- and Post-Deploy scripts for a given version of the database are only used migrate data from the previous version. At the start of every development cycle, the scripts are cleaned out and as development proceeds they get fleshed out with whatever sql is needed to safely migrate data from the previous version to the new one. The one exception here is static data in the database. This data is known at design time and maintains a permanent presence in the Post-Deploy scripts in the form of T-SQL MERGE statements. This helps make it possible to deploy any version of the database to a new environment with just the latest publish script. At the end of every development cycle, a publish script is generated from the previous version to the new one. This script will include generated sql to migrate the schema and the hand crafted deploy scripts. Yes, I know the Publish tool can be used directly against a database but that's not a good option for our clients. I am also aware of dacpac files but I'm not really sure how to use them. The generated publish script seems to be the best option I know for production upgrades.

So to answer my scenarios:

1) To upgrade a database from v3 to v8, I would have to execute the generated publish script for v4, then for v5, then for v6, etc. This is very similar to how we do it now. It's well understood and Database Projects seem to make creating/maintaining these scripts much easier.

2) When the schema changes from underneath data, the Pre- and Post-Deploy scripts are used to migrate the data to where it needs to go for the new version. Affected data is essentially backed-up in the Pre-Deploy script and put back into place in the Post-Deploy script.

3) I'm still looking for advice on how best to work with these tools in these scenarios and others. If I got anything wrong here, or if there are any other gotchas I should be aware of, please let me know! Thanks!