11.30.17
With the speed of software development increasing, more and more companies and organizations are recognizing that version controlling code is becoming as important for databases as it is for applications. In recognition of this, Redgate has upgraded its Source Control for Oracle tool so that it version controls static data within databases as well as database schemas.
Version 4 which has just been released now stores and shares reference data like lookup tables and metatables, enabling them to be version controlled alongside database code.
While a relatively small change, this is also an important one because everything necessary to update an Oracle database from its current state to the desired state can now be handled with the same version control platform used for applications.
As Doerte Letzmann from Redgate’s Product Division, comments: “This has been a widely requested feature because development teams want to optimize the way they update both their applications and their databases. With the new feature, Source Control for Oracle now can be used to deploy schema and static data changes within one tool.”
The functionality is already a popular feature in Redgate’s SQL Source Control tool and the update puts Oracle users on a par with SQL Server users. This was another major driver for the change, which was complicated by the difference between the SQL used by SQL Server and Oracle databases.
As Doerte Letzmann says: “While SQL Server and Oracle are both relational databases which use SQL coding behind the scenes, the flavor of SQL they use is slightly different. SQL Server uses Transact SQL, or T-SQL, while Oracle relies on Procedural Language SQL, or PL/SQL, which is more complex. As a result, we had to do more development work to add the functionality to the Oracle platform.”
With an increasing number of companies now using different database platforms to address varying business requirements, the change is also an important one. Users can now, for example, move from SQL Server to Oracle and still work with tools they are already familiar with.
It also means that if companies want to standardize their approach to database development by, for example, introducing DevOps practices like version control, they can do so across their whole estate of both SQL Server and Oracle databases, and have every team working in the same way.
Redgate’s State of Database DevOps Survey, released earlier this year, revealed that 80% of companies and organizations will have started applying DevOps practices to their software delivery within the next two years. The upgrade of the Source Control for Oracle tool means that, whether SQL Server or Oracle – or a mixture of the two platforms – is the database of choice, it can still be included by starting the journey to DevOps with version controlling the database.
