What is ApexSQL Diff and why do I need it?

Last month in our blog, “An introduction to 8 ApexSQL tools,” we introduced our Toad World® readers a new member in the Quest® family of database tools, ApexSQL. While ApexSQL has 29 (and growing) DBA and developer tools, we narrowed our focus to 8 tools that we thought would be of interest. This year, we’ll expand on that introduction and provide a helpful accompanying blog series for each. 

Picture of technician, computer and servers. What is ApexSQL Diff and why do I need it?

ApexSQL tools are built for the Microsoft SQL Server with you in mind

As DBA and developer roles continue to expand, and database environments continue to evolve, we understand you need reliable tools. ApexSQL tools are built for the Microsoft SQL Server environment. With its proven SQL expertise and solutions, ApexSQL provides competitive SQL solutions for database auditing, recovery, change management, development and documentation. 

How can ApexSQL Diff help me?

Developers often need to compare database schemas, review and synchronize changes, and achieve that without issues and/or errors. ApexSQL Diff is a tool that can help in that process, as it can compare and synchronize SQL Server schemas between databases and database backups, but it can also compare schemas under script folders and source control projects, along with ApexSQL snapshots. 

It also supports comparison and synchronization of SQL Azure Databases, Amazon RDS for SQL Server, CLI, creating automation scripts (batch and PowerShell scripts), and executable installation packages. 

It can automate and schedule database migrations, propagate schema changes from one environment to another, identify and repair lost and/or damaged objects, perform object level recovery from SQL backups without restoring. 

In case something goes wrong, ApexSQL Diff can reverse any changes made by automatically creating a backup prior to database synchronization, a rollback script, or an ApexSQL snapshot.

With this tool you'll be able to create sophisticated reports to document the differences between your data sources and schedule your migration unattended, using the Command Line Interface and automation scripts. 

Automate and run unattended

With ApexSQL Diff, there is no need for manual comparison and synchronization of schemas, as the complete process can be automated and run unattended, while you can sit back and just check the created output files once it’s done.

Learn more

Visit the ApexSQL Diff product page and learn how you can compare SQL schemas from databases, backups, scripts and source control.  

 

10 blogs to help you ramp up on ApexSQL Diff

The following articles will help you better understand the tool itself and how to quickly compare schemas between different SQL Servers and data source, filtering objects, along with automation:  

  1. How to narrow schema comparison and synchronization to affected objects only
  2. How to automatically keep two SQL Server database schemas in sync
  3. How to automatically compare and synchronize multiple databases on different SQL Server instances
  4. How to migrate a SQL Server database to a newer version of SQL Server
  5. How to recover only objects from SQL Server database backups
  6. How to recover a specific dropped object
  7. How to restore a SQL Server database backup to an older version of SQL Server
  8. How to automatically compare and synchronize SQL Server database objects with a shared script folder
  9. How to apply static data under source control to a SQL Server database
  10. How to deploy changes directly to a SQL database from a source control repository

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