What elements of a database are related to software development? In general most people think of the schema, however there are at least three types of information to consider:
- Schema: table definitions (CREATE TABLE), indexes, stored procedures, triggers and all the other myriad DDL (Data Definition Language) that can be used to fully recreate a database on a blank server.
- Configuration data: Control tables or configuration tables that contain data that starts the system up. These configuration tables can include state names, tax rates, country codes or other data that is not transactional in nature. Typically these configuration tables are small in size, however exporting only the schema can often miss these critical elements of the database
- References: Content that’s stored elsewhere but referred-to by the database. The database may have file paths stored within a table that refer to files on a file share, or URLs that refer to content stored within SharePoint.
ExaOps makes capturing such complex information straightforward, and in addition includes tools that can both automate extraction of the above types of content, as well as other tools that help to identify the content already stored within Enterprise systems.
