This feature is available in v8.8 and later.

Traditional packaging requires users to maintain a reference database, but often this is expensive and cumbersome to manage. Using a SQL Server Ephemeral Database eliminates the need to manage an additional database on the pipeline. You simply configure Liquibase to create a temporary copy of a database in the pipeline to be used in place of the Reference Database. Once the copy is made, you will ensure that all of your changes work on the copy, implement them on your original database’s changelog, and then destroy the database copy. Follow this guide to learn how to implement this workflow.

Pre-requisites

Requires Liquibase Enterprise 8.8 and higher
Ephemeral database connection require the same Roles as required for Datical Packager Permissions, db_backupoperator and dbcreator.

Limitations

You cannot place the temporary copied database in a pipeline or run a status on it because technically it does not exist in the pipeline.

Usage

Using a SQL Server Ephemeral Database eliminates the need to manage an additional database on the pipeline. The ephemeral packaging feature creates a clone or copy when the packager runs, then packages all the changes on it, and drops the database copy after packaging is complete. If the final deploy is not skipped - it will deploy newly packaged changes on the desired database (this is the DEV database in most cases).

It’s important to note that the database to be copied should always be the first database in the pipeline.

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Backup and Restore Package Methods

In order to implement an Ephemeral Database, the databaseBackupRestoreMethod package method on the deployPackager.properties needs to be configured.

A new package method called BackupRestoreEphemeralSqlServer has been added.

Package Method Name	Description
BackupRestoreEphemeralSqlServer	The new database will be created on the same instance as the original database. Eg. if I want to use the DEV database, the cloned db will be created on the same instance as the DEV database.

See: Use the Required deployPackager.properties File

1. Update the deployPackager.properties

Update the deployPackager.properties file to set databaseBackupRestoreMethod=BackupRestoreEphemeralSqlServer

2. Setup database permissions

Ensure the first database in the pipeline(s) has the db_backupoperator and dbcreator permissions for the user.

Integrated Security option
Liquibase will connect to the ephemeral database using the same connection method as the first database in the pipeline. If the first database is using Integrated Security connection method, then the ephemeral database will also use Integrated Security connection method.

3. Remove existing REF dbDefs and references in the datical.project

In the datical.project file, remove any dbDef definitions for REF databases and also remove the references to these dbDefs in the plans/pipelines.

4. Optional Step: Associated deployPackager.properties

These are packaging properties available specifically for the ephemeral database packaging method. They are optional if you would like to override the default values.

Property Name

Description

ephemeralCopyName

[Optional] Defines a name for a DB copy (has impact on SQL Server Ephemeral copy only).

Default name for the ephemeral copy will be source database name with _eph postfix. For example, if source name is ABC_DEV, the copied database name will be ABC_DEV_eph.

Property Validation: Copy name should be up to 30 characters long, contain no spaces [ ], slashes [/] and semicolons [;] and cannot begin with a number.

ephemeralCopyWithData

[Optional] By default Liquibase will copy databases without data. (*) If you would like to copy both the structure and data, use this boolean property.

(*) There is one exception in that the data from the DATABASECHANGELOG table is included in the database copy.

Property Validation: true/false

ephemeralSkipFinalDeploy

[Optional] The default value for this setting is false. Any changes being packaged are deployed to the first database in the pipeline during the Deploy Packager operation.

Setting this value to true allows changes to be packaged and changesets to be created and stored in the changelog.xml, but the deployment to the first database in the pipeline does not occur.