Backup PROD database to DEV or TEST

[Guest]

I would like to automate the step of backing up our Production database and restoring it to my Test database so I can test running the change scripts over production data. There is no concern for prod data in a test environment.

However, I can't figure out how to connect to the Prod database from the TEST or DEV environment deployment plans without creating another connection. Is there a better way to do this?

Thanks,
Matthew

[Guest]

Hi Matthew,

This is a limitation, but it's on our list to address in the next release; as a workaround, you can create the action group in your PROD environment, then drag it to the TEST or DEV groups. It's a hack, but should be fixed soon.

[Guest]

Thanks for the confirmation. I just tested this technique, and it worked really well, actually. I'm going to use the following naming convention:

DEV SQL Server (the actual DEV database)
TEST to DEV SQL Server (the TEST database available to the DEV BuildMaster environment)
PROD to DEV SQL Server (the PROD database available to the DEV BuildMaster environment)

I was concerned that BuildMaster would want to re-initialize the database, but it didn't. In fact, during the next build in DEV, BuildMaster correctly backed up my PROD db and restored to DEV and then determined that my SQL Change Script had never been run (since the BuildMaster execution table is also restored). This is how I expect and want it to behave.

Thanks again for the VERY FAST response!
Matthew