Most people involved in database development would agree Database Lifecycle Management (DLM) is a good idea. When implemented correctly, you get a reliable, repeatable and predictable way of delivering database changes and minimize much of the deployment pain associated with manual processes. So why isn’t everyone doing it already? Well, because putting it into... Read more
A couple of years ago, Redgate adopted Database Lifecycle Management (DLM) as a unifying context for our existing and future database tools. But what exactly is DLM? Why is Redgate so keen on it? Is it a change in direction, an acknowledgement of customer demand, or just a different way of describing the DevOps... Read more
Deploying database changes to new environments is a very stressful activity. Many organizations and their employees dread migrating changes to a production database because of the potential for problems or downtime. There are ways to minimize the potential issues and build more reliable deployment processes. In fact, many organizations do this, but they do... Read more
In this post, we take a big step forward in engineering the database development process by looking at Continuous Integration (CI) for your database and the characteristics of a software pipeline that begins to implement a repeatable process. This is the S3 stage, named for, and characterized by, the use of CI. S3 –... Read more
In my last post, I looked at the first stage of our maturity model, the Manual level. In this post we move to the S2 level, which is characterized by the use of a formal Version Control System (VCS) and process. S2 – Automated Version Control Many software development organizations have implemented a VCS... Read more
At Redgate Software, we’ve been trying to build tools that help developers work with software better. One of our areas of focus in the last few years has been streamlining database development and deployment. To help customers migrate to a smoother workflow and a better engineered software development pipeline, we’ve built our own maturity... Read more
One of the ways in which many software development teams have tried to improve the quality of their output is by examining what has worked in other organizations and projects in the past. They look to experiment with new techniques and ideas, and implement those items that work. This practice has allowed Agile, Scrum,... Read more
We’ve just finished the acquisition of ReadyRoll, a database migrations and deployment tool that makes it easy for software teams to develop SQL Server databases within Visual Studio. That’s the headline news, but why did we do it, and are our customers really ready for it? I’ll answer the second question first. Yes. With... Read more
As I’ve been speaking and training people on Database Lifecycle Management (DLM), I’ve learned one thing. Trying to implement version control, and Continuous Integration (CI), and automated releases of code is hard. The concept is simple, but all of the various processes, tools, and links that need to be connected can be hard. I’ve... Read more
