SQL Compare has a simple premise: it will compare two databases, a source, and a target, and generate a script that, when executed on the target, will make its schema the same as the source. Tony Davis explores all the ways this can be helpful during database development work.
2020-10-01
There is no single, correct approach to developing and testing your SQL batches and routines. It depends on the requirement. For simple tasks, like modifying and testing a view or stored procedure, SQL Compare and SQL Data Generator, combined, provide a useful, lightweight development harness.
2020-07-29
Phil Factor dissects and disentangles the various SQL Compare options.
2020-07-28
If some of your database constraints have system-generated names, they can cause 'false positives' when comparing schemas and generating build scripts using SQL Compare or SQL Change Automation. Phil Factor explains the difficulties, and the Compare option you need to enable to avoid them.
2020-07-10
Phil Factor shows you how to prevent constraint violations from ‘breaking the build’, during SQL Compare deployments, by ferreting out any conflicting rows in advance, and developing a script to fix the data.
2020-03-03
Giorgi Abashidze explains how his team use a 2-phase deployment process with SQL Compare Command line, and some SQL Synonyms, to automate custom deployments for each of their customers, while only needing to maintain one branch per release in source control.
2020-02-05
You want to use SQL Compare or SQL Change Automation (SCA) to create or update a database, and at the same time ensure that its data is as you expect. You want to avoid running any additional PowerShell scripting every time you do it, and you want to keep everything in source control, including the data. You just want to keep everything simple. Phil Factor demonstrates how it's done, by generating MERGE scripts from a stored procedure.
2019-12-13
Giorgi Abashidze explains how his team use SQL Compare Command line to automate database deployments for their customers, without having access to the real staging or production databases, merely by using our development database contained under TFS Source Control.
2019-12-12
You want to use SQL Compare or SQL Change Automation (SCA) to create or update a database, and at the same time ensure that its data is as you expect. You want to avoid running any additional PowerShell scripting every time you do it, and you want to keep everything in source control, including the data. You just want to keep everything simple. Phil Factor demonstrates how it's done, by generating MERGE scripts from a stored procedure.
2019-12-10
Giorgi Abashidze explains how his team use SQL Compare Command line to automate database deployments for their customers, without having access to the real staging or production databases, merely by using our development database contained under TFS Source Control.
2019-12-06
By Steve Jones
We had an interesting discussion about deployments in databases and how you go forward...
By ChrisJenkins
You could be tolerating limited reporting because there isn’t an off the shelf solution...
A while back I wrote a quick post on setting up key mappings in...
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In SQL Server 2025, what are the most outgoing and incoming FK references a table can have?
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