Refactoring Databases : Evolutionary Database Design

Scott Ambler (IBM), Pramod Sadalage (Thoughtworks)

Tutorials · Developing

Thursday, 14:00, 3 hours 30 minutes | Grand Ballroom South

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For years the norm for object developers was to work in an evolutionary (iterative and incremental) manner but for database developers to work in a more serial manner. The predominance of evolutionary development methodologies such as Extreme Programming (XP), Feature Driven Development (FDD), the Open Unified Process (OpenUP), and the Rational Unified Process (RUP) it is clear that the two groups need to work in the same manner to be productive as a team. Scott and Pramod will present material from their book "Refactoring Databases:Evolutionary Database Design" on how to go about doing evolutionary database development and will talk about the following techniques: 1. Database refactoring. Evolve an existing database schema a small bit at a time to improve the quality of its design without changing its semantics. 2. Evolutionary data modeling. Model the data aspects of a system iteratively and incrementally, just like all other aspects of a system, to ensure that the database schema evolves in step with the application code. 3. Database regression testing. Ensure that the database schema actually works. 4. Configuration management of database artifacts. Your data models, database tests, test data, and so on are important project artifacts which should be managed just like any other artifact. 5. Database Schema Deployment. Ensure that the scripts used to build development environments are the exact same used in QA, UAT and production. Ensure deployment to production is not a surprise and not a project in itself. Objectives: Tutorial participants will gain in depth knowledge about different ways to refactor their database. Detailed instructions on refactorings will be provided. This will include systematic instructions along with application and database code examples with UML diagrams. Audience: Developers, DBAs, Change Managers, Deployment Managers, and Project Managers.

Scott W. Ambler is Practice Leader Agile Development within IBM Rational's methods group. He is founder and thought leader of the Agile Modeling (AM) (www.agilemodeling.com), Agile Data (AD) (www.agiledata.org), Enterprise Unified Process (EUP) (www.enterpriseunifiedprocess.com), and Agile Unified Process (AUP) (www.ambysoft.com/unifiedprocess) methodologies. Scott is the (co-)author of several books, including Refactoring Databases, Agile Modeling, Agile Database Techniques, The Object Primer 3rd Edition, and The Elements of UML 2.0 Style. Scott is a contributing editor with Dr. Dobb's Journal (www.ddj.com) and has spoken and keynoted at a wide variety of international conferences including Software Development, UML World, Object Expo, Java Expo, and Application Development. Scott graduated from the University of Toronto with a Master of Information Science. In his spare time Scott studies the Goju Ryu and Kobudo styles of karate.