Re: best practice in upgrading db structure

[Jim Nasby <decibel(at)decibel(dot)org>]

On Mar 29, 2006, at 3:25 AM, Csaba Nagy wrote:

> > Could somebody explain me, or point me to a resource where I can find
> > out what is the recommended practice when a live db needs to be  
> > replaced
> > with a new version of it that has a slightly different structure?
>
> Our development infrastructure includes a development data base  
> cluster,
> with one data base per developer, and a staging data base with a  
> largish
> deployment of the current production data base version.
>
> The developers are free to test whatever data base modifications they
> need on their private development data base. We have a "setup_db"
> script, which creates the data base structure + initial data. The  
> script
> is based on an XML file which is processed by XSLT to generate the
> actual schema for Oracle/Postgres. So the developers usually recreate

Have you considered releasing that creation code? I know there's lots  
of places that have a need for stuff like this, and having used a  
similar system before I know how powerful it can be. Unfortunately  
the company I worked for was too paranoid to release the database  
creation tool we used. :( Had they, maybe you wouldn't have had to  
write one from scratch.
--
Jim C. Nasby, Database Architect                decibel(at)decibel(dot)org
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