Delta deployment is a crucial aspect of maintaining and updating Data Solutions.
It involves deploying only the changes made since the last deployment rather than deploying the entire database schema or data.
While biGENIUS-X does not currently support delta deployment, several popular tools available on the market can assist you with this task.
In general, the steps necessary to do a delta deployment are the following:
- Implement the changes in your biGENIUS-X project and generate the necessary artifacts
- Deploy the solution to the DEV environment, ensuring a clean deployment without unused objects
- Using your preferred tool, perform a schema comparison between the current production database and your updated DEV environment
- With your chosen tool, generate a script that includes only the changes you intend to deploy
- Review the differences and address any issues that arise
- Deploy the script to the production environment
- To include the new objects and their dependencies in the load control:
- Go to the Load Control folder in the generated artifacts
- Verify that configuration files have the correct replacements for PROD applied
- Deploy the necessary files
Here are some well-known tools for schema comparison (not an exhaustive list):
- SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) is an integrated development environment provided by Microsoft for building SQL Server relational databases, data warehouses, and related artifacts. The Schema Compare feature in SSDT is handy for delta deployments.
- Redgate SQL Compare for Microsoft SQL Server is a well-known tool for comparing and deploying SQL Server databases. It is widely used for managing database changes and automating deployments.
- Oracle SQL Developer includes a Database Diff feature that lets you compare and merge schema differences between Oracle databases.
- DBeaver provides a robust schema comparison feature that allows users to compare two database structures and generate detailed reports in various formats, including DDL scripts and Liquibase change logs. DBeaver supports various technologies, including Snowflake, Redshift, Databricks, Oracle, and others.