Comments on: Modifying Tables Online – Part 2: Implementation Example

By: Something for the Weekend - SQL Server Links 20/04/12

Something for the Weekend - SQL Server Links 20/04/12 — Sun, 27 May 2012 10:14:38 +0000

[...] Modifying Tables Online – Part 2: Implementation Example - Continuing his excellent series, it’s Michael J. Swart (Blog|Twitter) [...]

By: Michael J. Swart

Michael J. Swart — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 19:08:46 +0000

You bet Matt!
Transactions and conditional executions. That’s part 3. Stay tuned.

About the meta data stuff, yes, you probably could write something more generic and robust based on meta-data. That’s a great idea for a codeplex project. If you’re up for it, I’d probably contribute where I could.

By: Matt O

Matt O — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 19:03:07 +0000

I’m curious . . . can your “switch” be wrapped in a transaction? If it can be wrapped and you don’t isn’t there the potential (however brief) for failure between the renames of the original to old and the new to original?

If you can’t wrap it in a transaction with rollback capabilities then that risk exists regardless.

One other question, have you considered generating the “switch” code by querying the metadata tables rather than hardcoding all names? As long as you own your environment I suppose there is no need for the additional complexity but in an environment where the names of objects may be changed could you discover all of the dependencies through the SQL Meta data?

Anyway, great post.

Thanks,

Matt