Comparing Databases

By using Visual Studio Team System Database Edition, you can compare databases from Microsoft SQL Server 2000 and Microsoft SQL Server 2005. You can compare the data of databases, and you can compare the schemas of databases to the schemas of databases or database projects. After the comparison is complete, you can view the schema or data differences. In certain situations, you can then update one (the target) with schema objects or data from the other (the source). The capabilities are summarized here:

Compare and Update Schemas

• Both the source and the target are databases. You can compare a source database to a target database, and you can then update the target database with schema objects from the source database.

• The source is a database project, and the target is a database. You can compare a source database project to a target database, and you can then update the target database with schema objects from the source database project.

• The source is a database, and the target is a database project. You can compare a source database to a target database project, and you can then update the database project with schema objects from the database.

Compare and Update Data

• Both the source and the target are databases. You can compare the data of a source database to the data of a target database, and you can then update the target database with data from the source database. Database projects contain no data, so you cannot use database projects when you compare or update data.

In This Section

• Comparing Database Schemas
  Describes how to compare the schemas, or structures, of two databases or of a database and a database project.

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