Reverse-engineering, database synchronization and round-trip-engineering

Reverse-engineering is the operation of getting the definition of the database schema from an existing database. Database synchronization means to put the database and the logical database schema in sync. Round-trip-engineering means reverse-engineering plus database synchronization. A kind of get schema, work on it and put it back on the database.

DbSchema works on an internal copy of the schema. Once you connect first to the database, this copy will be generated through reverse-engineering You can edit this copy or save it to disk. This is your database schema in an XML format. You can share your project file in CVS together within your team. By changing the project database template you can switch the project to another RDBMS.

Later you can synchronize the local project with the database. By synchronization you will choose an action for each difference found. The action may be to merge the difference into the local project or to modify the database. After this step DbSchema may generate the SQL synchronization script or apply the changes online, one by one, with the user confirmation.

This way of working with databases is the most secure one. You have a full control when modifying the database. You can execute without problems changes which may take longer: you can interrupt them, execute them later, etc.