AWS Partner Network (APN) Blog
Automate and Accelerate Database Deployments on AWS with Redgate Flyway Enterprise
By: Venkatesh Periyathambi, Principal Data Architect – AWS
By: John Q. Martin, Technology Partner and Alliances Manager – Redgate
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Redgate Flyway Enterprise transforms AWS database operations by automating deployment pipelines for Amazon Aurora, Amazon RDS, and Amazon Redshift face. This state-based approach eliminates manual script creation, reduces deployment risk, and enables database changes to match application development velocity.
Manual Database Deployments Block Digital Transformation
Modern applications require coordinated changes across multiple database objects. These objects include tables, views, stored procedures, functions, and indexes. Changes must maintain data integrity while minimizing downtime.
These challenges include:
- Lengthy change approval processes
- Error-prone manual script creation
- High-risk deployment windows spanning hours or days
- Disconnected database and application release cycles
These manual processes become even more complex during migrations from commercial databases like SQL Server or Oracle to AWS-managed services. Teams must adapt to new deployment patterns while maintaining operational reliability.
Redgate Flyway Enterprise Applies DevOps Principles to Database Change Management
Redgate Flyway Enterprise addresses these challenges by applying DevOps principles to database change management. The platform integrates with AWS services to deliver automated, reliable, and fast database deployments that match application development standards.
State-Based Database Automation Eliminates Manual Scripts
Instead of requiring explicit “up” and “down” migration scripts, Redgate Flyway Enterprise automatically generates deployment and rollback scripts by comparing the desired state (defined in source control) with the current database state. This state-based approach means teams define what they want the database to look like, and the platform determines how to get there safely.
Native AWS Database Integration
The platform integrates with AWS Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) services including:
- AWS CodeCatalyst for end-to-end development workflows
- AWS CodeBuild for automated build and test processes
- AWS CodeDeploy for reliable deployment orchestration
Teams establish automated pipelines triggered by code commits, pull requests, or scheduled releases. The platform provides advanced deployment patterns including blue-green deployments, canary releases, and rolling updates for high availability.
The Flyway Enterprise Database Automation Workflow
Figure 1 illustrates the automated script generation and deployment process that transforms database operations from manual bottlenecks into streamlined, automated workflows.
Figure 1: Redgate Flyway Enterprise database deployment workflow diagram
The platform implements a five-phase workflow that aligns with modern software development practices:
1. Development Phase Teams work in self-service environments provisioned through AWS CloudFormation and AWS Service Catalog. Developers spin up isolated database instances for feature development, ensuring changes don’t interfere with other team members’ work. Each developer receives a complete database environment that mirrors production configurations, including schema structure, stored procedures, and reference data. The self-service model eliminates waiting for infrastructure teams and reduces environment provisioning time from days to minutes.
2. Script Generation Flyway Enterprise automatically creates deployment and rollback scripts by comparing the desired state with the current database state. This process includes dependency analysis and change ordering to ensure safe deployments. It maintains referential integrity (the accuracy and consistency of data relationships). The platform analyzes table relationships, foreign key constraints, and stored procedure dependencies to determine the correct execution sequence. Generated scripts include validation checks and error handling to prevent data corruption during deployment.
3. Source Control Integration Generated scripts are committed to development branches alongside application code. This ensures database and application changes remain synchronized. The platform handles Git-based workflows including feature branches, pull requests, and merge strategies. Database schema changes follow the same code review process as application code. The system includes automated conflict detection. This helps when multiple developers modify the same database objects.
4. Automated Testing AWS CodeBuild and AWS CodeDeploy create build artifacts and facilitate testing across multiple environments. This includes unit tests for database objects, integration tests for application compatibility, and performance tests to ensure changes don’t degrade system performance. The testing phase validates schema changes against existing data, verifies stored procedure functionality, and runs regression tests to catch issues before production deployment. Automated quality gates prevent problematic changes from advancing through the pipeline.
5. Production Deployment Fully automated deployment across all environments with built-in approval gates, monitoring, and rollback capabilities. The platform coordinates deployments across multiple database instances and regions, supporting complex, distributed architectures. Deployment orchestration includes blue-green deployment strategies to minimize downtime, real-time monitoring of database performance metrics during rollout, and automatic rollback triggers when deployment validation fails. The system maintains deployment logs and provides detailed reporting for compliance and audit requirements.
Proven Database Modernization Results
Skyscanner demonstrates the transformative impact of this approach. As Ryan Crawford, Senior Director of Engineering at Skyscanner, explains: “We’re managing to release up to 95 times per day. It’s vastly improved from one every six weeks!”
Integration with AWS Database Migration Service
For organizations modernizing from commercial databases to Amazon Aurora, Redgate Flyway Enterprise works synergistically with AWS Database Migration Service (DMS). This combination provides a comprehensive solution for both initial migration and ongoing change management.
Teams leverage DMS’s Schema Conversion Tool (SCT) for the initial conversion of database schemas and stored procedures to AWS-native formats. Once the initial migration is complete, Flyway Enterprise manages ongoing changes throughout the development lifecycle.
Figure 2: Redgate Flyway Enterprise and DMS
This integrated approach becomes particularly powerful when combined with infrastructure as code practices using AWS CloudFormation or AWS CDK. Organizations establish fully automated environments where database schema changes, application deployments, and infrastructure updates are all managed through code.
The integration also handles hybrid scenarios where organizations maintain on-premises databases alongside AWS-managed services, ensuring consistency and enabling gradual migration strategies.
Advanced Platform Capabilities
Drift Detection and Remediation
Database environments naturally diverge over time due to emergency fixes, manual interventions, and configuration changes. Redgate Flyway Enterprise’s drift detection goes beyond simple schema comparison to identify discrepancies in data, permissions, and configuration settings.
The platform’s dry run capability allows teams to validate changes before production deployment, generating detailed reports that show exactly what will be modified, added, or removed. When drift is detected, teams have 3 options:
- Correct the drift Automatically
- Generate scripts to address discrepancies manually
- Update the source of truth to reflect intentional changes
As a Data Science Manager at a US-based credit union notes: ” One of the key things is developer confidence and enabling them to take risks because the pipeline will catch it. With all the tests in place, they make big changes and forget the database migration complexity”.
Enterprise-Grade Governance and Compliance
Every database change is tracked with complete traceability: what was developed, by whom, when it was approved, and when it was deployed. This granular change history extends to the database object level and includes metadata on deployment environment, execution time, and any errors or warnings encountered.
For organizations subject to regulatory requirements such as SOX, HIPAA, or PCI DSS, Redgate Flyway Enterprise provides the audit trails and change documentation necessary to demonstrate compliance.
Optimizing DORA Metrics
Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) defines four key metrics that distinguish high-performing software development organizations. Flyway Enterprise improves these metrics for database development:
- Change Lead Time: Automated script generation reduces lead time from days or weeks to hours or minutes
- Deployment Frequency: CI/CD integration delivers reliable deployments through automated state-based migrations
- Change Fail Percentage: Drift detection, dry run capabilities, and automated testing reduce deployment failures
- Failed Deployment Recovery Time: Automated rollback capabilities and detailed deployment logs minimize recovery time
Cost Optimization and Enhanced Security
Redgate Flyway Enterprise delivers cost optimization through ephemeral, on-demand environments. Teams provision database instances only when needed, automatically destroying them when complete. This approach reduces non-production costs by 60-80%.
Combined with Redgate Test Data Manager, teams work with masked, synthetic, or subset data while protecting sensitive information. This proves crucial for organizations handling personally identifiable information (PII) or operating in regulated industries.
The platform implements encryption at rest and in transit, network isolation, and AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) integration for fine-grained access controls, ensuring database DevOps practices strengthen rather than compromise security postures.
Transforming Database Operations
Redgate Flyway Enterprise transforms database operations from a bottleneck into a competitive advantage. By standardizing change management processes and integrating directly with AWS services, organizations achieve the same operational excellence in database development that they have realized in application development.
Erik Dörnenburg, CTO at ThoughtWorks, summarizes the impact: “With techniques such as Continuous Delivery becoming mainstream, automated database migrations are a baseline capability for software teams. Redgate Flyway makes it as painless as possible to automate this process.”
Next Steps
Ready to accelerate your database modernization journey? Contact your AWS Account Manager or visit the AWS Marketplace to explore Flyway Enterprise and discover how it transforms your database operations while maximizing the value of your AWS investments.
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Redgate – AWS Partner Spotlight
Redgate is an AWS Technology Partner that solves the complex database challenges which can impact cloud migration, workload optimization and data platform modernization. Available in AWS Marketplace, our portfolio of end-to-end solutions supports you to minimize risk, improve quality, scale faster and meet ever demanding compliance and security standards, on any database engine, wherever you are on your cloud transformation journey.