Always Be Continuously Delivering! Short introduction to Continuous Delivery and creating a deployment pipeline. Abstract: Databases often sit outside Continuous Delivery for a variety of reasons, good and bad. But if you want fast and reliable deployments, the database cannot remain separate. We’ll talk through the challenges and look at tools to automate database delivery, highlighting open source options. I’ll live demo a database change flowing to ‘production,’ giving a clear picture of a fully automated process. The session is for developers, ops people, and managers, who will come out understanding how to customise practices and toolsets, building a pipeline suited to their environment. The result will accelerate database delivery, while protecting the organisation’s most valuable asset: its data.

1. ABCDs of Database Development
(Always Be Continuously Delivering)
Elizabeth Ayer, Redgate
Continuous Lifecycle London
May the 4th
@ElizAyer #ConLifecycleLon

2. 1.What it is
2.Why you want it
3.Why you can’t have it
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Continuous Delivery in 3 minutes

3. Continuous Delivery is a set of software
development practices which ensure that
software remains releasable at all times. It is
based on continuous integration, and
automated build, test and deployment.
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4. Don’t stockpile pain.
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5. www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2658403/posts
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6. Version
Control
Build
Release
Management
Validation Production
Dev, Test, Review
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7. Source: 2015 State of DevOps Report, Puppet Labs
https://puppet.com/resources/white-paper/2015-state-of-devops-report
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Why the business wants DevOps

8. @ElizAyer #ConLifecycleLon
Why you want CD

9. Databases as a bottleneck
3 reasons why databases have traditionally slowed down
deployments:
Technology lag
 SQL
 CI systems
DBA paranoia
 Frankly…
1 2 3
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Data persistence
 Data outlives
applications
 Data can’t be
replaced

10. Version control becomes the source of truth
~~~~
Development uses production-like environments
~~~~
Changes are reviewed at design time
~~~~
Nobody changes the database by hand
Database CD: the rules
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11. Application vs Database CD
Application Database
What you check in: Code Migrations
(or database state)
What ‘build’ means: Compile, link, etc. Validate by running
migrations
What you test in CI: Unit test Upgrade data checks
(and unit test db logic)
When you deploy: Replace application Run migrations
More like infrastructure code than application code….
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12. Demo!
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13. Scenario
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Continuous
Integration
TicketDeskDev1 TicketDeskMyTest TicketDeskCI
Version
Control
1. Design change:
table split
2. Validate change
locally: table split
3. Validate change
on CI database

14. Scenario
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Jenkins
TicketDeskDev1 TicketDeskMyTest TicketDeskCI
Git
1. Design change:
table split
2. Validate change
locally: table split
3. Validate change
on CI database
Flyway

15. Alternative approaches
1. Application controls database
2. Desired state
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16. FAQs
Hotfixes?
Spinning up environments from scratch?
Zero-downtime?
…Wait, isn’t this scary?
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17. @ElizAyer #ConLifecycleLon
or
?

18. Thank you!
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19. Original Abstract
• Databases often sit outside Continuous Delivery for a variety of reasons,
good and bad. But if you want fast and reliable deployments, the
database cannot remain separate. We’ll talk through the challenges and
look at tools to automate database delivery, highlighting open source
options. I’ll live demo a database change flowing to ‘production,’ giving
a clear picture of a fully automated process. The session is for
developers, ops people, and managers, who will come out
understanding how to customise practices and toolsets, building a
pipeline suited to their environment. The result will accelerate database
delivery, while protecting the organisation’s most valuable asset: its
data.

20. Image Credits
Slide 5: Kudzu picture via www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2658403/posts
Slides 6, 13, 14: Icons made by Dave Gandy and Freepik from
www.flaticon.com, CC BY 3.0 license
Slide 7: Data table from 2015 State of DevOps Report, Puppet Labs
https://puppet.com/resources/white-paper/2015-state-of-devops-report
Slide 8: Screenshot of https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/agile/continuous-
delivery.html
Slide 17: Plutonium handling picture from http://www.dsnews.ua/future/pyat-
innovatsiy-proshloy-nedeli-kotorye-vy-mogli-propustit-27122015201700
Simpsons picture from http://showbizgeek.com/the-simpsons-final-episode-
the-perfect-ending/