How do you manage databases in development, test, and production?

Question

I\'ve had a hard time trying to find good examples of how to manage database schemas and data between development, test, and production servers.

Here\'s our setup. E

Answer 1

There are a couple of good options. I wouldn't use the "restore a backup" strategy.

1. Script all your schema changes, and have your CI server run those scripts on the database. Have a version table to keep track of the current database version, and only execute the scripts if they are for a newer version.

2. Use a migration solution. These solutions vary by language, but for .NET I use Migrator.NET. This allows you to version your database and move up and down between versions. Your schema is specified in C# code.

Answer 2

We have a very similar setup to the OP.

Developers develop in VM's with private DB's.

[Developers will soon be committing into private branches]

Testing is run on different machines ( actually in in VM's hosted on a server) [Will soon be run by Hudson CI server]

Test by loading the reference dump into the db. Apply the developers schema patches then apply the developers data patches

Then run unit and system tests.

Production is deployed to customers as installers.

What we do:

We take a schema dump of our sandbox DB. Then a sql data dump. We diff that to the previous baseline. that pair of deltas is to upgrade n-1 to n.

we configure the dumps and deltas.

So to install version N CLEAN we run the dump into an empty db. To patch, apply the intervening patches.

( Juha mentioned Rail's idea of having a table recording the current DB version is a good one and should make installing updates less fraught. )

Deltas and dumps have to be reviewed before beta test. I can't see any way around this as I've seen developers insert test accounts into the DB for themselves.