Friday, November 05, 2010

The greatest SQL Server development tools ever

A very special situation at work has required us to look into software for comparing and merging data between two databases with very similar data. Originally we had planned to use Microsoft's SQL Server replication, but the replication system's inability to cope with special constraints forced us to look elsewhere for a solution. A co-worker recommended Redgate's SQL Data Compare product, and as it turns out that it rocks something fierce. It does exactly what I hoped it would, and is stupid simple to use.

Whilst looking at that I also took a look at SQL Compare from the same company. Also mind numbingly good.

Like most shops (should have) we have three environments (or more): Dev, Test and Production. Migrating from the development environment on up has consistently been a chore (at best) and headache inducing, I hate this and want to quit (at worst). With these tools much of the pain is completely side-stepped with minimal tweaking required at migration time.

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