Comparing Database Schemas

By using Team Edition for Database Professionals, you can compare the schema of two databases or of a database and a Visual Studio database project. You can use Team Edition for Database Professionals to compare databases from Microsoft SQL Server 2000 and Microsoft SQL Server 2005. For more information about the types of comparison and update operations that you can perform, see Comparing Databases.

The schema-comparison tool also automatically generates Data Definition Language (DDL) scripts that you can use to update the schema of the target database to match the schema of the source.

In This Section

• Overview of Comparing Database Schemas
  Describes aspects of the schema-comparison functionality in Team Edition for Database Professionals, including safety considerations.

• How to: Compare the Schemas of Two Databases
  Describes how to compare the schemas of two databases.

• How to: Set Options for Comparing Database Schemas
  Describes how to set options that determine what is considered a difference when you compare schemas.

• How to: View Schema Differences
  Describes how to interpret the data that Team Edition for Database Professionals displays after it compares two schemas.

• How to: Synchronize Database Schemas
  Describes how to change the schema of the target database to match the schema of the source database.

• Walkthrough: Comparing the Schemas of Two Databases
  Provides a detailed, step-by-step description of a database schema comparison.

• Walkthrough: Comparing the Schemas of a Database and Database Project
  Provides a step-by-step description of a schema comparison between a database project (the source database) and a deployed database (the target database).

Related Sections

• Comparing Database Data
  Describes how to compare the data in two databases.

• How to: Import Updates from a Database into the Database Project
  Describes how you can resynchronize the database project with the existing database after changes are made to the database, instead of synchronizing to the database project under version control.

See Also

Concepts

Terminology Overview of Team Edition for Database Professionals