David Atkinson gives a presentation on automated database build and testing, or continuous integration (CI), for databases. He explains that CI ensures database code is always working by automatically building and testing databases on each change. The demo shows two developers using CI to incrementally keep a test database up to date, run automated tests, and generate deployment scripts. When a fix introduces a breaking change, they address it by adding a custom migration script to the deployment package to safely update data during deployment.

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Automated Build and Test
(or continuous integration)
(for your database)
David Atkinson
Product Manager, Red Gate
David.Atkinson@red-gate.com

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What will we cover today?
Database build automation:
What, Why, How
Practical Demo
Questions encouraged!

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Show of hands:
How agile is your database development?
1. Database objects/scripts aren’t in version control
2. Database objects/scripts are in version control
3. An automated build system exists to build and test
the database
4. An automated release system is used to promote
your database to your environments

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How agile is your database development?
1. Database objects/scripts aren’t in version control
2. Database objects/scripts are in version control
3. An automated build system exists to build and test
the database
4. An automated release system is used to promote
your database to your environments

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What is continuous integration?
“Continuous Integration is a practice
designed to ensure that your software is always
working, and that you get comprehensive
feedback in a few minutes as to whether any
given change to your system has broken it.”
Jez Humble, ThoughtWorks, author of
“Continuous Delivery”

6. database
#sqlinthecity
What is continuous integration?
^
“Database Continuous Integration is a
practice designed to ensure that your database
software is always working, and that you get
comprehensive feedback in a few minutes as to
whether any given change to your system has
broken it.”

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Database Build Automation

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What is build?
• For application code = compile
• For database code = database creation script
– But only for a new installation!
• Upgrade scripts required for existing
installations
– Need to preserve the state of the data

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What is test?
• For .NET code, NUnit.
– Runs on a developer’s machine and build
server
• What about the database?
– tSQLt is an open source framework for testing
SQL Server databases
– SQL Test provides SSMS integration

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Demo background
Two fictional developers, David and Grant,
are working on the website, www.simpletalk.com, a community website for .NET
and SQL Server developers
The application comprises
• An ASP.Net web application
• A SQL Server database

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Demo background
Continuous integration has been configured
to:
1. Keep a test database up to date with the
latest changes
2. Run automated tSQLt tests
(on realistic amounts of data)
3. Generate up-to-date documentation
4. Generate deployment scripts

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Demo background
A few improvements are being made to
Simple Talk.
These changes will be deployed to
production.
But… only when the dev team has
demonstrated that the changes work!

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Tools used
• TeamCity (CI tool from JetBrains)
• SQL Automation Pack (includes TeamCity plugin)
• Glimpse (open source)
From the SQL Developer Bundle:
•
•
•
•
SQL Source Control
SQL Test (tSQLt unit testing framework)
SQL Data Generator
SQL Doc

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Demo

15. Custom Migration Scripts
An introduction
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Generating a deployment script
1
12

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How changes are made
create
table
modify
procedure
1
2
3
delete
column
create
trigger
drop
view
4
5
6

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How changes are made
create
table
modify
procedure
1
2
modify
trigger
create
function
7
3
drop
procedure
8
4
10
6
5
create
view
modify
function
9
delete
column
create
trigger
drop
view
create
procedure
11
12

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How SQL Compare sees the world
1
12

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But not all changes can be inferred
1
2
3
5
column
rename
merge table
8
merge column
split column
9
6
add NOT NULL
column without
DEFAULT
table
rename
split table
7
4
10
11
data transformation
data motion
12

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SQL Compare and SQL Source Control
support custom migration scripts
1
2
3
4
5
6
11
12
Custom migration script
7
8
9
10

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Deployment script with migration
scripts
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12

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1
1’
12

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Demo

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Recap: database CI
1. Incrementally keeps a test database up to date
2. Runs tSQLt tests on a database with realistic
amounts of data
3. Generates always-up-to-date documentation
4. Generates and validates deployment scripts
5. Publishes a Deployment Manager database
package

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Recap of demo: writing a test
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
A new test is added
Continuous Integration identifies a failure
We reproduce the bug locally
We fix the bug and test it
We commit the fix to source control

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Recap: migration scripts
1. The fix sets the [PublishDate] column from NULL to
NOT NULL
2. Grant’s “get latest” fails because existing data that
has NULL values
3. The continuous integration build alerts us of the
same issue
4. A migration script is added to UPDATE existing
data prior to changing the column to NOT NULL
5. Get Latest becomes possible and the continuous
integration build once again indicates working
software

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Latest version at :
www.red-gate.com/CI
David.Atkinson@red-gate.com
Questions?