A common use of the Red Gate SQL Comparison SDK is to package up the latest version of a database schema and send it to customers as an executable.

This example demonstrates how easy it is to use the SDK to do this.
NOTE: SQL Comparison SDK is to be the new name for SQL Toolkit

Pre-requisites

• Visual Studio 2005 or Visual Studio 2008
• Red Gate SQL Comparison SDK
  You can download a 14 day free trial of SQL Comparison SDK if you haven’t already got it.
• WidgetProduction and WidgetStaging SQL creation script
  This database creation script is used by some of the SQL Compare API toolkit samples.
• SqlDbDeploy.zip
  The database schema deployment example used in this article.

Building the example

When you load the solution in Visual Studio you will need to update the references to the toolkit assemblies. You can find the .dll files in the folder where you installed SQL Compare. The default location is Program Files\Red Gate\SQL Compare 6

If you want to change the splash image then you can replace the splash.jpg file in resources.

The embedded snapshot.snp file is used by default. A snapshot of the WidgetStaging database is included in the resources folder. You can delete it or replace it with your own snapshot but you need to remember to set the build action to Embedded Resource.

Using the example

The compiled example takes a number of command line parameters which are:-

/S:<servername>
- This is the server on which the database resides to synchronize.
/D:<database>
- The database name to update.
/B:<filename>
- If you want to make a backup of the original schema before an update specify a filename here.
/V:true
- Specify this if you want verbose information.
/UE:<snapshotname>
- Name of embedded snapshot to use. If /UB not specified then default is snapshot.snp /UB:<snapshotfilename>
- Name of snapshot file to use.

At the moment the example includes a snapshot for the WidgetProduction database so if you run the following parameters:-
SqlDbDeploy.exe /S:davidm\sql2005 /D:widgetproduction /B:backup.snp

This would update the widgetproduction database on davidm\sql2005, create a backup snapshot before doing an updates and call the file backup.snp and provide verbose output.

If you want to reset the database back to the original you would use:-
SqlDbDeploy.exe /S:davidm\sql2005 /D:widgetproduction /V:true /UB:backup.snp

SqlDbDeploy – The movie
Just in case you haven’t installed the SDK yet you can view a flash movie of a demonstration of SqlDbDeploy.

Thank You
I would like to thank the Red Gate customers who provided information and source code which helped me to understand how they are using the SDK. In particular a big thank you to Rawden Hoff of Nebula Systems whose VB.Net example inspired me to produce this example.

Feedback & disclaimer
This example is provided “as is” and is not supported by Red Gate Software. This is my first .net Windows application so if you find this example useful or have any suggestions for improving it then it would be great to hear from you

UPDATE FOR SQL Comparison SDK v7

The solution available for download is for the SQL Toolkit v6 if you are using the SQL Comparison SDK v7 I believe you will need to make the following changes.

• Open the solution and remove the references to the Red Gate assemblies.
• There have been some namespace changes so you will need to add the new assemblies from your V7 installation. The files are
  RedGate.Shared.Sql.dll, RedGate.Shared.Utils.dll and RedGate.SqlCompare.Engine.dll
• Replace the RedGate using statements in Form1.cs with
  using RedGate.Shared.SQL;
  using RedGate.Shared.SQL.ExecutionBlock;
  using RedGate.Shared.Utils;
  using RedGate.SQLCompare.Engine;
• Because of the namespace changes remove the references toRedGate.SQL.Shared from Form1.cs line 168 so it now looks like
  BlockExecutor executor = new BlockExecutor();

What is SQL Toolkit? 
SQL Toolkit is an software development kit (SDK) from Red Gate Software (my employers) that provides .net developers with an api, samples and documentation for doing schema and data comparisons of Microsoft SQL Server databases. The toolkit also has a an api for packaging databases and database updates.

Why would I use SQL Toolkit?
Interestingly I believe that many of the solutions that customers are using SQL Toolkit for can already be done with the GUI or command line versions of SQL Compare, SQL Data Compare or SQL Packager products but software developers sometimes prefer to have the increased level of control that they gain by using the SDK.

The customers I have had contact with seem to use the software for the following:-

• Update the database schema at a customers site without user interation
  An executable is sent to the customer which they run and which compares a database snapshot with the customers database and then updates the customers database with the differences.
• Continuous Integration (automated testing)
  Some customers had previously been using database backups for their testing but using the toolkit is significantly quicker and more effective.
• Keep internal databases in sync (often in different geographical locations)
  The Microsoft SQL Server replication isn’t as friendly or as easy as some people would like and so customers are using SQL Toolkit to keep databases synchronized across different sites.
• Update SQL database for remote web hosts
  You develop on a local server and then you need to migrate your changes to your web servers which are hosted remotely.
• Change control and auditing
  SQL Toolkit is being used as part of the change control process to record changes being made to production systems.

There are certainly more uses for SQL Toolkit then I have listed but if you want to do SQL database comparison and want a high level of control then you should take a look at it.

Links: 
Red Gate SQL Toolkit product page
SQL Toolkit free 14 day trial

Up until now I haven’t used SQL Toolkit that much so I thought it would be nice to learn more about the product and come up with my own example of using SQL Toolkit to deploy/update a database. A recent survey and some helpful existing customers have given me an insight into what people want such an example to do so in the next few days I intend to post my first attempt and then make improvements to it over the coming weeks.

The SQL Toolkit provides full api access to the Red Gate comparison tools giving you database schema, data and packaging functionality in your own applications. You can download a free 14 day trial of SQL Toolkit.

After my first attempt at profiling only produced results for MSTest, I suspected that my tests were being run in a seperate process. Luckily MSTest has a /noisolation argument and once I used this everything ran as expected.