Alternatives to Tarantino for database Continuous Integration (CI)?

Question

We're currently using VincentVega (now rolled into Tarantino) for our database CI. We're using CruiseControl.Net for our web app (C# using TFS).

VincentVega has worked out relatively well since it's very explicity and handles the two scenarios of create and update (while preserving existing data) equally well. I'm looking into upgrading to Tarantino, but I'd like to know if anyone might suggest some alternatives I should look into? Tools like SQL Compare that "automagically" produce delta scripts are out of the question, unfortunately, since our database is highly normalized with over 500 tables.

Thanks

Eric Tarasoff

Endoergic

Why are the change scripts not viable if the table is highly normalized? Perhaps just a better generator needs to be used? At some level ALL the database migrations need to generate/know the deltas -- whether this is explicit or implicit. – Kosaka

I'd be curious to know what you settled on. And I'm curious about why SQL Compare wouldn't be suited. – Predator

I guess getting back to this question years later is better than never? At the time I posed this question, we stuck with VincentVega. Now, years later and at another organization, after checking out a few of the alternatives out there right now, I chose RoundHousE. Despite being a convention-over-configuration type solution, I found it to be extremely flexible for different use cases. More than that, going from zero-to-up-and-running was fast and the documentation is not too bad. Also, there are enough other people using it that you can look for help pretty easily. – Endoergic

...with respect to why SQL Compare wasn't suited: 1) We are a large distributed team where each member has a copy of their own db; 2) My experience using it with ultra-large databases with existing data has shown occasional areas where it just doesn't put together a synch script correctly; 3) SQL Compare is not free; 4) For the most part, RoundHousE and tools like it already operate in a model similar to what we're doing now, so we're able to capture the benefit without a lot of process-change cost. – Endoergic

...also, one last reason for choosing RoundHousE: Chuck Norris – Endoergic

It's only been four years since my last comment, so I thought it was time to revive this thread! (see new answer posted below describing ReadyRoll) – Predator

Answer 1

There is also another project which may be worth looking at by Rob Reynolds; RoundHousE

http://code.google.com/p/roundhouse/

The wiki is at https://github.com/chucknorris/roundhouse/wiki

Bifocals

Answer 2

There's a similar tool by Paul Stovell and friends called DbUp.

One notable difference between Tarantino and DbUp is that while Tarantino is typically called from a build script (like Nant or msbuild), DbUp has .NET classes you use within your application. This potentially allows for better fallback handling in case a script doesn't go as planned.

http://code.google.com/p/dbup/

Here's the original announcement of DbUp from Paul Stovell's blog: http://www.paulstovell.com/dbup

Marniemaro

Answer 3

I think it might be of interest to post another answer since Redgate now has a new offering, ReadyRoll, that satisfies your key concerns.

• "it [SQL Compare] just doesn't put together a synch script correctly"

Yes, diffing tools can sometimes get the script wrong. Often it's not that the script doesn't work, but it doesn't apply the change in the desired way. ReadyRoll's best-of-both-worlds approach uses SQL Compare under the hood to create each migration script, but crucially it allows the developer to customize the script afterwards.

• "RoundHousE and tools like it already operate in a model similar to what we're doing now"

ReadyRoll's approach is, like RoundHousE, migrations-based, managing the upgrade process by running a series of consecutive scripts. This tool was built in recognition that many development teams prefer working this way.

• "One last reason for choosing RoundHousE: Chuck Norris"

I will have to concede defeat on this point...

Predator