(Red Gate - SQL Data Compare)
By Lee Sykes
November 2007
In this tutorial we explore the development and deployment of a DotNetNuke website that is already online. - How to synchronise a local installation with a live installation.
In this tutorial we demonstrate how to add updates to the local version and apply those updates to the live version while keeping both versions completely synchronised and without taking the live site offline and vice versa.
We demonstrate how you can synchronize a live hosted website using SQL Server 2005 with a localhost installation using SQL Server Express.
So far we have explored options such as
page and
portal templates and
how to transfer a DotNetNuke installation from a live site to a localhost installation, but none of these options keep the data completely synchronized. So, after some research we have discovered a piece of software called
SQL Data Compare by Red Gate, you can view details of this software as well as download a trial copy at their website.
This tutorial comes complete with 4 videos.
Video 1 - Introduction, Setup, Comparing Databases, Viewing Data
- Introduction
- Red Gate SQL Data Compare
- Viewing the live site and local site copy
- How to create a new project using SQL Data Compare
- Specifying the settings for the local SQL Server Express database
- Specifying the settings for the live SQL Server 2005 database
- How to compare the live database with the local database
- Viewing the results page of the database comparison
- An explanation of the options and functions for synchronizing
- How to change the direction of the synchronization
- Viewing objects with differences in their rows
- How to view data which is different in the local database to the live database
- How to view the data which exists in both databases, but differs between the two databases
- How to view data which is different in the live database to the local database
- Viewing objects with identical rows only
- Viewing objects which could not be compared
Time Length: 10min 22secs
Video 2 - Editing the local installation and comparing with the live installation
- Adding a new page with a text / html module to the localhost installation
- How to refresh the database comparison
- Viewing the objects with differences in their rows
- How to select which tables and data to synchronize
- Synchronizing details for the new local page, permissions, skin, and text / html module
Time Length: 6min 52secs
Video 3 - Synching local database to live and live to local
- The synchronization wizard
- Action plan, modifications, warnings
- Synchronizing the local and live databases
- Viewing the live website
- The test page, skin, page settings, text / html module and data have all been transferred
- Adding registered users to the live website
- Refreshing the comparison in SQL Data Compare
- Viewing the objects with differences in their rows
- Setting the synchronization direction from live to local
- Selecting the objects to synchronize
- The synchronization wizard
- Synchronizing the live and local databases
- Viewing the localhost installation
- Viewing the registered users that have been transferred from the live website
Time Length: 7min 43secs
Video 4 - Synching multiple simultaneous edits on live and local installations
- What happens if you have multiple administrators editing the live and local websites at the same time?
- Specifying rules for the administrators
- Adding a new page to the localhost installation
- Adding a new user to the live website and editing text on an existing page
- Refresh data comparison in SQL Data Compare
- Viewing the objects with differences in their rows
- Selecting which objects to transfer from the live site to the local site
- The synchronization wizard
- Synchronizing the live and local databases
- Viewing the objects with differences in their rows
- Selecting which objects to transfer from the local site to the live site
- Setting the synchronization direction local to live
- The synchronization wizard
- Synchronizing the local and live databases
- Viewing the live website with the local page transferred
- Viewing the localhost installation with the users transferred and the edited text / html module
Time Length: 7min 59secs
Total Time Length: 32min 56secs
References:
How to backup a live hosted DotNetNuke website and restore it to a localhost installation
Red Gate SQL Data Compare