deltaRefresh is a tool for managing Markit EDM database provisioning and environment refresh in multiple environments. deltaRefresh makes it simple to manage a stack of Markit EDM development, testing, staging, and QA environments, and – more specifically – to manage the freshness of the data in each environment in relation to the actual production environment. deltaRefresh uses production backups or, in certain cases, production instances as a source and can provision or refresh to lower environment.
Automated database refreshes with deltaRefresh make it easy to generate clean and consistent Markit EDM environments with fresh and up-to-date data. It fully validates and tests your important database backups each time a lower environment gets refreshed. With all environments automatically in sync, deltaRefresh supports automated testing and deployments by bridging gaps and failures caused by dirty data or environment drift.
deltaRefresh gives control to the team and the ability to refresh non-Production environments on a scheduled or ad hoc basis. The automated database refresh process supports a continuous integration model and is extensible, allowing for table structures, data, permissions, and parameters to be retained in the target environment. Combined with deltaDeploy, the ability to import Markit Packages and SQL allows for the rebuilding of an environment quickly and efficiently. This assists the testing process, as the user can have current data in the target environment and allows for repeated deployment of changes to a production-like environment to ensure the production deployment goes smoothly. It also enables users to easily rollback changes and redeploy a release if necessary.
deltaRefresh automates the environment refresh and provisioning processes and databases can be spun up and down as needed and where needed, with the capability of being self-service for development teams. It gives developers the ability to expedite releases with confidence due to consistent data across environments and the to go through the develop/deploy/test/re-develop/re-deploy/re-test cycle as frequently as required. deltaRefresh prevents unnecessary breaks in productivity by allowing production issues to be duplicated in lower environments and tests to be run on meaningful data. It also works in sync with deltaDeploy and deltaTest as an integrated CI/CD solution, creating a seamless unification of the deltaTools set.