DB development in a distributed development team

Question

The development team is geographically distributed. Of course we have code repository/bug tracking portal. As rule in our projects we use MS SQL 2005 and 2008. We do not have dedicated person who develop only DBs. Any developer of the team can contribute DB changes to the project.

We needed a tool which will allow to do DB development in a simple, controlled, flexible and comfortable manner.

From my previous experience the MS Database Project is too monstrous to work with for small and medium projects and requires trained dedicated person(s).

I looked through alternative solutions which I googled: dbdeploy (from ThougthWorks) and http://dbdeploy.com/documentation/competition/. But I wasn't impressed.

I found out two free tools which we use now:

DBComparer (http://www.dbcomparer.com) and Agile DBRIRE (http://www.thisisagile.com/dbrire)

My question is what tools do you use and what you can recommend to look at?

Answer 1

If you haven't seen it already, K. Scott Allen's short series of posts on database version control provides some useful pointers and things to consider. It starts here.

As for suggestions of specific tools - I haven't used it in anything other than an experimental capacity, but you could take a look at Wizardby.

Answer 2

Do you use an existing source control system for your application code? If you're using Subversion or Team Foundation Server, you might consider SQL Source Control as an option. It's much more lightweight than the VS Database Project and makes it easy for developers to share changes, as well as providing all the existing benefits of source control.

http://www.red-gate.com/products/SQL_Source_Control/

Let me know if you have any questions!