Updating SQL Schema in Multiple SQL Databases at One Time

Question

Our issue is we have an online application with personally identifiable data. We have sold this application to multiple customers and the law in their States says that the data MUST be physically in their State. So this is why we have the identical database (not identical data) in different locations.

Right now we use RedGate SQL Compare, but as we continue to grow, doing this eight, nine, ten times for every update (be it a small stored procedure bug fix or a larger change creating a new table) is becoming more and more inefficient. Marketing is telling us five more states are on the way.

We've looked into a RedGate method, but its more coding and troubleshooting than its worth.

So...any ideas how to update the SCHEMA from one to many databases?

Answer 1

I work for Redgate, so I'd love to promote it even more, however, let's ignore it for the moment.

If you want to automate deployments to lots of servers at once, I'd suggest you look to tooling like Azure DevOps Pipelines or AWS DeveloperTools, or even a 3rd party product like Octopus or Jenkins. The idea is simple, use any tool you like, right up to just your keyboard, to create the artifacts needed for deployment (your T-SQL scripts for SQL Server). Then, the agents in one of these flow control tools does the heavy lifting of ensuring that script gets deployed to multiple locations. Because you can configure these agents with independent security, you don't have to have the same levels of security yourself that you'd need to control stuff through SSMS or the Central Management Server. Further, this method allows for very easy parallel execution. The only way you can do that yourself is through some pretty extensive PowerShell (or Python) work.

As much as I'd like to promote Redgate as part of this solution, it's actually not necessary (it's just better). You can generate the necessary artifacts any way you want. The important point is being able to control exactly how they get deployed, dealing with tracking the successful and failed deployments, varying levels of necessary security, all this stuff. That's exactly what tools like those I mention before are intended to do.

Also, yeah, this is a ton of work. Automating deployments is absolutely the way to go. However, it's not without labor. Instead of spending your time doing manual processes, prone to error, repetitive, boring and slow, you spend time, and effort, automating stuff. It's not so much that work gets eliminated, rather it gets reoriented. Then, you get all the benefits of that automation. However, you do have to maintain it, grow it, expand it, and deal with issues within it. All work.

Answer 2

There is a function in SQL Management Studio that works. In SMS use CTRL-ALT-G. This brings up 'Registered Servers'. Under Local Groups you can create groups. Say one for testing and one for live. You then right-click on the local group you created and choose "New Server Registration". Under General tab you give it a name and then in Connection Properties tab, you select just one database. Keeping adding "New Server Registrations" for each database you want in the group. When done, just right click on your Group and choose New Query. Anything you put in there will run on ALL the databases in the group. So, if all our databases are identical, and you need to make an update, use Redgate to do a Compare. Choose 'Create a Deployment Script' instead of 'Deploy Using SQL Compare' and copy the SQL. Right-click on the group and say "new query" paste and execute.

Answer 3

I'm assuming this is SQL Server since you specified "RedGate SQL Compare" and not "MySQL Compare". If it's not SQL Server, ignore this.

Without having to adopt a new toolset (or even pay RedGate for something) and since the database (not the data) is identical, you could set up a Central Management Server (Microsoft documentation on that here), register each individual SQL Server instance, build your deploy script (you can still use SQL Compare for this), and then use the CMS to simultaneously push the schema changes as you need them to all of the instances or to defined groups as you like.

This would assume you're using windows authentication for all the servers and that whoever does the deployments would have the same access across all of the servers, but it's a pretty decent solution for multi-server administration of this type in general and it's a solid feature that's been around for while (2008).