I am looking for advice on practical ways to update customer databases. Let me describe our situation:
- We provide a product that uses an MSSQL database, hosted on 2008 R2 standard server.
- For new installations of the product we provide a default database (distributed in the form of database backup file that is restored at the customer site).
- The database contains items that are non-customer changeable (e.g. things that define / configure the product) and things that are changeable (e.g. user records etc.)
- From time to time we need to update the software which may include a need to update the customer database.
The problem is that to replace a customer database as a whole would result in them losing their own data. Database updates typically just require that certain tables be replaced in their entirety. Historically, the way we have updated the database is to tell the customer to restore new the default database to a database with a different name. Then to manually import appropriate tables (that do not contain customer data) into their own live database. Although this does work, it is not a very customer friendly approach.
I would like advice on ways to automate as much as possible the overwriting of specific customer database tables when we need to upgrade. I was thinking along the lines of scripts that import tables into the live database (if possible directly from a database backup, but if that is not possible then from a fresh copy of the default database). However, I am open to any other approach.
Thank you in advance for your help.