ASP.NET MVC 4, Migrations - How to run 'update-database' on a production server

Question

I can use package manager to run 'update-database -verbose' locally.

Probably a stupid question but I can't find it online - once my website is deployed - how can I run this manually on the server?

Secondarily - what other strategies would you recommend for deploying database migrations to production - and how would they be preferable?

Thanks

Answer 1

You have a couple of options:

• You could use update-database -script to generate the SQL commands to update the database on the server
• You could use the migrate.exe executable file that resides in the package folder on /packages/EntityFramework5.0.0/tools/migrate.exe. I've used it successfully in the past with Jet Brains' Team City Build Server to setup the migrations with my deploy scripts.
• If you're using IIS Web Deploy you can tell the server to perform the migrations after publish (see pic below)
• You could setup automatic migrations, but I prefer to be in control of when things happen :)

Update: Also, check out Sayed Ibrahim's blog, he works on the MsBuild Team at Microsoft and has some great insights on deployments

Answer 2

I know that the question is already answered, but for future reference:

One of the options is to put something like this in the constructor of your DB context class:

public MyDbContext()
    {
        System.Data.Entity.Database.SetInitializer(new MigrateDatabaseToLatestVersion<MyDbContext, Configuration>());            
    }

Answer 3

For us, the DBAs are the only group to have access to the production (and pre-production) environments. We simply use the Update-Database -Script package console command to get the Sql required to update the database. This gets handed off to them where they can validate it, etc.

Maybe a little too simplistic for some but it works.

HTH.