Review of SQL Compare v3

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Review of SQL Compare v3

Robert W Marda

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Points: 13413
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December 28, 2003 at 12:00 am

#107036

Comments posted to this topic are about the content posted at http://www.sqlservercentral.com/columnists/rmarda/reviewofsqlcomparev3.asp
Robert W. Marda
Billing and OSS Specialist - SQL Programmer
MCL Systems

Viewing 6 posts - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

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Jonr SSCrazy Points: 2566 More actions · Answer 1

Having used SQL Compare for a couple of years now out in-the-field, I'd agree with your observations Robert. It is an excellent product, very stable and does what it is designed to do very well - I've recommended it to a number of people. It's very good at sorting out the problems experienced by development teams who've not had the know-how to keep dev. and test / production databases in sync. Well worth the money.

(NB: I'm not involved with Red Gate in any way, other than as a happy customer!)

Jon

williamhoos@yahoo.com Right there with Babe Points: 789 More actions · Answer 2

I agree completely. It saves amazing amounts of time and the new version's speed is definitely worht the upgrade. A line by line and field by field option for excluding data comparisons and syncronization would be nice. Great product.

VadimK Mr or Mrs. 500 Points: 551 More actions · Answer 3

I've been using SQL Compare for a few months and I can't agree more with Robert that SQL Compare is an amazing tool. As a DBA I manage over 20 SQL servers and this tool saved me a lot of time comparing databases between PROD, UAT and DEV. Our developers couldn't believe how quickly I was able to find differences in tables, sprocs, etc. Keep it up, Red-Gate!!!

Dean Stevens Grasshopper Points: 19 More actions · Answer 4

After reading all this about Red-Gate I thought I’d give it a go.

It doesn’t work for me and I’m wondering how it can possibly work for anyone else with a database that has any interrelated objects (dependencies) at all.

I noticed the review was made on a database with only 3 tables, 2 views, 1 stored procedure, 2 database roles, 2 users, 1 default and only 2 user defined data types that I can see.

That to me is a meaningless test.

I’m a release manager at NTL in Hook, Hamshire, United Kingdom.

I ran a test on what used to be our most problematic database.

This database consists of the following objects: 796 tables (290 of which contain static data consisting of 107,186 rows), 62 views, 3352 stored procedures, 4 rules, 4 defaults, and 160 user defined functions.

That to me is a meaningful test.

I compared this to the database to be released and came up with 2609 schema changes and 169 tables with data changes consisting of 1603 deletes, 39379 inserts and 11409 updates making row changes 52391.

SQL Compare failed with 302 errors. After that I didn't bother with the data comparison.

Granted it is still better than working this out by hand, but we use another system which for our last 4 releases has never failed and does not need any modifications.

When people say this application fast (SQL Compare) – you have to put it into perspective.

I have to correct all these errors to release the software.

That would take days.

As I have said earlier, this was our most problematic database.

We now use DB Ghost which handles the release perfectly and integrates with our daily build process.

These guys are incredibly helpful and although are nowhere near as big as some of the other software vendors that say they compare and synchronise databases, they’re the best.

I can’t see how the other vendors say they ‘synchronise’ when clearly to me they don’t.

Regards,

Dean Stevens

Mike Yeager SSC Enthusiast Points: 157 More actions · Answer 5

Hey Dean,

We've been using SQL Compare for a couple of years now on a similarly large DB schema. The only issue we've run into with the latest version is with non-nullable columns with a default. We've found that we have to insert the column instead of adding it at the bottom of the list, then set the option to enforce column order. This forces a new table to be built and the data transferred to it instead of adding the column to the existing table definition which will fail. It sounds to me like some of the settings you've used need to be adjusted. I'd especially check on the "Include dependant database objects" option.

I've checked out Embarcadero's Change Manager product and didn't like it as well as SQL Compare, but haven't heard of DB Ghost. I'm going to look it up and give it a run. Thanks for the tip!

Mike