Database Update and Change Management Center for Web Application

Question

We have a web application that uses Spring / JPA / Hibernate. We are currently using SolidBase to manage database changes, which works well in a managed deployment model, but we are now moving on to a non-deployment model, where users can download the web application. We are creating "Update Center" type functionality for a web application and trying to figure out how we should apply database changes.

Ideally, I would like the application to apply any pending database changes when the application starts, and I would like it to be something that we can program programmatically, but I do not want to rewrite the Hibernate SchemaExport functionality for this.

Does anyone have any recommendations, templates, or best practices on how we can best implement this functionality in our application?

Are there application libraries for update centers that will solve our problem (I could not find any)?

Answer 1

I discovered this article while researching this

http://www.infoq.com/news/upgrade-frameworks

This led me to this post.

http://www.jroller.com/mrdon/entry/transparent_sql_schema_migration_with

Ultimately, this led to the fact that I decided to solve this problem myself using Apache DdlUtils and the BeanFactory solution offered by jroller.com.

Ultimately, it will be a component that can be dropped into any application, outdated or new, to implement the update functions in a web application. It will use XML to apply database updates, and using DDL this means that the package will work against any supported database. The updater will also support updates to the filesystem resources and the data itself (as opposed to the scheme).

Answer 2

I do not work for BitRock.

This may not be exactly what you are looking for, but I used InstallBuilder from Bitrock to manage these types of updates for distributed applications. This is the same installer package that the PostgreSQL command uses. It was quite simple to get this job with minimal headaches. Especially compared to other installers.