Visual Studio 2013 SQL Server Project Deployment/Publish

Question

I am looking for information regarding Visual Studio 2013 and working with SQL Server projects using VS 2013. We are currently working on a project where were're using a database that already exists and is used by an ERP application. We're creating SQL Scripts that would alter and create fields on a table on the target database.

Now, we're not looking to "publish" those scripts, but create postdeploy scripts instead, which contains all the necessary SQL scripts in the order they need to be run. Everything is working fine. When we build the project, we get a fresh copy of the PostDeploy.sql script file that we run across a target database.

At the moment, the script looks at a table, if the column that needs to be added exists, it DROPS it and then recreates it. This is fine for the testing phase, but once we go live, there will be several stages of the databases that the code needs to be tested on. The column may already exist from before and in that case, we wouldn't want to DROP that column, instead, we want to do schema and data level compare and just get over the objects that are DIFFERENT, so that the column doesn't need to be dropped, instead just "updated". I hope I am not being vague when I ask this question.

I found this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuVpmu9CKRY and I am not sure if that is what I need to do? I would love any suggestions from you guys..

Have a wonderful day!

Answer 1

Well, this isn't really the best use for SSDT/DB Projects. Ideally, you'd want to pull the schema into a project and tweak that project to look the way you want. Rename columns, change types, etc. Because it sounds like this is a 3rd party app, you'd want some environment that can serve as your baseline - when you run whatever upgrade script is sent by the vendor, it goes against that environment. You'd then want to pull the appropriate changes into your project.

Once you have a project that looks the way you want, you use the publish option against your target database. In your case, I'd likely recommend generating a script. If you're in the VS environment, you can take a look at both the script and a summary of what will be changed.

For data compares, I'd really consider something like Red Gate's SQL Data Compare (pro edition if you can). You can set up a data compare against your baseline and automate pushing the data changes. You can do that through post-deploy scripts, but you'll need to hand-code the data inserts, updates, and deletes yourself.

I've blogged about SSDT before and that may give you some ideas. Jamie Thomson has also written quite a bit about Database/SQL Projects and inspired quite a bit of what I've done.

http://schottsql.blogspot.com/2013/10/all-ssdt-articles.html