Before starting the challenge make sure that you download and install Change Manager. Then run the Datasource Registration Wizard. The Wizard will help you register any DB2, Oracle, Sybase or SQL Server connections. Please register a development database and its corresponding test database: you will need to find a database where the Dev and Test databases differ structurally from one another.

Please note: The connection information only needs to be set up one time for each database.

1. In the Datasource Explorer, right click on the database you want to compare and select "Comparison >> Schema Comparison Job".
2. Drag your target data source in as a "Schema Comparison Target" to create a Live-to-Live compare job. Click on the "Refinements" tab and let it populate. In the "Filter by Owner" section at the top left, select the source database/owner that you would like to compare. Use "Filter by Type" to leave out particular types of objects, and "Object Refinement" to hone in on the specific source objects you wish to compare. (Hint: if you don't want server objects, uncheck them in the Object Refinement)
3. Click the "Mapping" tab to bring up a list of the target databases or schema, and match the source to the desired target by clicking on the target and selecting the database or owner. Click "Run Job" button at the top right of the screen to start the compare.
4. If there are differences between the two databases, you'll be able to browse the differences by clicking on "Show Individual Results", or to generate a sync script by clicking on "Sync All Targets". Browse the results first by double-click on "Show Individual Results". You can expand the tree to drill into the differences. Unchecking "Unchanged" at the bottom will display only what changed.
5. When you are done viewing the differences, click "Generate a Sync Script" to generate the Sync script, taking care not to run the script unless you really mean to!

Stop the clock! You are done.



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In just a few minutes, you have built a script to roll your development changes into your test environment. This helps ensure development and test databases are configured exactly the same. You can also synch with the production servers to ensure that dev applications conform to and work with production standards.


You can also compare data and settings in much the same way as you just compared schema. You can also use Change Manager to archive snapshots of schema for historical record, do archive-to-live compares, and roll change back as well as forward!