Maintaining Deployed Databases

This topic applies to:

Visual Studio Ultimate	Visual Studio Premium	Visual Studio 2010 Professional	Visual Studio Express

By using Visual Studio, you can compare two database schemas. Those schemas might be represented by a database, a data-tier application project, a database project, a server project, or the build output from a database project (a .dbschema file). When the schema comparison finishes, the results appear in the Schema Compare window. You can optionally write updates to the target or you can generate a Data Definition Language (DDL) script that you can use to update the schema and data on the target server so that it matches the source server.

Common High-Level Tasks

In the following table, you can find descriptions of common high-level tasks that support this scenario and links to more information about how you can successfully complete those tasks.

Common Tasks	Supporting Content
Synchronize schemas between your production and development databases: You can compare the schemas of your production and development servers and specify which changes you want to synchronize.	Compare and Synchronize Database Schemas
Synchronize data between your production and development databases: You can compare the data on your production and development servers and specify which changes you want to synchronize at the table level or even at the row level.	Compare and Synchronize Data in One or More Tables with Data in a Reference Database
Troubleshoot problems: You can identify and correct common problems that you might encounter when you compare and synchronize schemas or data.	Troubleshooting Schema Compare Issues Troubleshooting Data Compare Issues
Perform routine operations tasks: Back up your database, manage your transaction log, monitor your database, and tune the performance of your database.	On the Microsoft Web site: Backing Up and Restoring Databases in SQL Server Backing Up and Restoring How-to Topics (SQL Server Management Studio) Backing Up and Restoring How-to Topics (Transact-SQL) Transaction Log Management Monitoring (Database Engine) Performance (Database Engine)