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Home -> Community -> Usenet -> c.d.o.server -> Re: simple question for experienced developer/DBAs - moving schema changes to production
steve deno wrote:
>
> Does anyone have any tips on how to move schema changes into a
> production environment so that there is minimal if any interuption to
> the user and all data is preserved? I have a staging environment that
> is just like the production environment so could I export the
> production data , recreate the schema then import the data? If so ,
> what about the differences in schema and their data? Does anyone do
> this now? I assume this is a pretty standard procedure. Any Ideas
> would help
>
> Regards,
>
> Steve
I have to do a lot of that sort of thing and have found Embarcadero's ERStudio to be invaluable. Besides doing the modeling and design stuff, you can use it to keep track of storage parameters and everything else. It generates pretty good scripts to rename tables, map the changes, and move the data into the new structure. Reports etc. are very useful too for documenting and you can reverse-engineer or update your model from an existing schema or update the schema from the model.
I say pretty good because, as with any GUI, it will destroy you if you don't know what you and the GUI are doing, i.e. never run a change without checking and thoroughly understanding what the script it generates will do, make sure you have a backup etc. Depending on what you are trying to do, some manual mapping might be needed but it's a lot easier than starting from scratch.
It costs a bit but if you do much design, modeling, change management, documenting etc. it can be a real time-saver if used properly. Embarcadero has other change management etc. tools.
fdp