Question

I am going to create integration tests for my application. I want that my integration tests will be executed not in production DB. I want that before test execution begin, my continues integration server (team city) creates copy of my database and integration tests will be executed on it. Any approaches or best practicies ?

EDIT:

I would like to automatizate this process (any links to articles or forums).

Answer 1

Here are the steps that I would do

1. Backup and restore production database to the Integration server.
2. Remove/reset private information (credit cards, ssn, passwords) from the Integration database so that testers do not work with actual production data

Since you are using SQL Server, this is fairly easy to do using SSIS.

Steps:

1. Create SSIS Package
2. Add task to copy database or to backup restore database from Production to Integration
3. Add query tasks for each table cleanup operation
4. Save the package to SQL Server
5. Run job from within SQL Server or Create a job in SQL Scheduler to run at periodically

To learn about SSIS, a good book is SQL Server Integration Services Step By Step by Microsoft Press.

Good forums for SQL Server

• http://www.StackOverflow.com
• http://Ask.SQLServerCentral.com