Snapshot

Flyway Enterprise

A snapshot is the representation of a database schema at a moment in time stored in a single file format. A snapshot file can be used with a variety of Flyway commands. For example, a snapshot can be used as a comparison source or target when running the diff command.

Note: A snapshot is schema only, no data is included in the snapshot.

Why is this useful ?

A snapshot can be used to capture the state of a database at a specific point in time. This can be done using the Snapshot command. A snapshot has the advantage that it can be captured remotely, without needing access to a shared filesystem with the database server.

How is this used ?

A snapshot can be used with the check and diff commands. It's also possible to use a snapshot to provision a database, see the Snapshot Provisioner for more information.

A snapshot can be generated using the snapshot command. For example, the command below generates a snapshot of the dev environment:

$ flyway snapshot -snapshot.source=dev -snapshot.filename=C:\snapshot.json

Result of snapshot written to C:\snapshot.json

Usage with diff

See here for more information on the diff command.

A snapshot can be used as the diff.source or diff.target when running the diff command. The example command below diffs a snapshot against a prod environment:

$ flyway diff -diff.source=snapshot:C:\snapshot.json -diff.target=prod

diff artifact generated: C:\Users\FlywayUser\AppData\Local\Temp\flyway.artifact.diff
+-----------------------------+--------+--------------------+---------+-------------------------+
| Id                          | Change | Object Type        | Schema  | Name                    |
+-----------------------------+--------+--------------------+---------+-------------------------+
| YoZgVMdZR3p7FZEygVaRX9MoF2w | Add    | DDL trigger        |         | ddlDatabaseTriggerLog   |
| ZKZljmz2_Vvl5wLmV.mczvanHzM | Add    | Extended property  |         | MS_Description          |
| VYj3ZC0OtkZR4CbJ_JHm9BMkg_c | Add    | Full text catalog  |         | AW2016FullTextCatalog   |
| qlJstpTbyOQ7nRXTfUvY4lnUDIA | Add    | Function           | dbo     | ufnGetAccountingEndDate |
| JHc9rtmXwzfuqC7Ax4sw2tYE9Z0 | Add    | Function           | dbo     | ufnLeadingZeros         |
+-----------------------------+--------+--------------------+---------+-------------------------+

Usage with check

A snapshot can be used as the check.nextSnapshot or check.deployedSnapshot options when running the check command. Please see the following pages for more information on how snapshots can be used with the check command:

• Check concept
• Check: Deployed Snapshot
• Check: Next Snapshot