So you are designing a web application and you finally get to version 1.0 and deploy it to your server. As with most projects, you’re not anywhere close to being completely done now are you? One of the most dreaded tasks of any developer is updated your applications SQL tables and stored procedures on your live server to get it up to speed with the latest build. Not only is it a frustrating to create these scripts, once deployed the threat of bugs in your script can haunt you (ok haunt maybe be slightly exaggerating the feeling). Did I do it properly, is the phone going to go off with angry clients complaining about features that were working and now aren’t?

SQL Compare

Well lucky for me (an you?), I ran across SQL Compare. I believe the first time I saw this application was browsing through some web applications SQL scripts. I am currently using this application extensively whilst developing my ad server application IdealAdServer

The beauty of having this application is that I am no longer weary of making changes to my application. I know that once I am done developing new features, its as simple as firing up SQL Compare and running it on my product server and within a few seconds my databases tables, stored procedures etc. will be updated to the latest build.

How does it work? For starters, I fire up the application and enter my source and destination databases.

I then start the comparison process and I am soon presented with a screen that tells me exactly which objects in my database have changed, along with a side-by-side comparison of exactly what changes where made to e.g. the table or stored procedure.

From the above image it’s fairly clear how simple this application is to use. I have the option of choosing exactly which objects I want to update on the source database. Below is nice screenshot that gives you an idea of what sort of other options are available to you during the update process.

So you have chose exactly what objects you want to update on your live server, once this is done you simply press the synchronize button and SQL Compare will begin the update process. Once it has completed with the synchronization, it will run another comparison automatically to show you that the changes where made successfully. If you don’t want the software to do the updates for you, you will be glad to know that SQL Compare generates the SQL syntax for you so you can simply cut and paste the SQL and run it manually yourself or use it in any other way you please.

The Verdict

SQL Compare is a great tool for any developer that uses databases extensively. It eases the deployment process of your applications and can really improve developer productivity.

For more information (free trial available), check out SQL Compare at http://www.red-gate.com/SQL_Compare.htm