What are the COTS database limitations?

Note: This does not apply to custom schemas, integrations, or analytics databases external to the COTS application. It only applies to the database schema(s) managed by the COTS vendor's tooling.

Causes

Using Liquibase to make deployments on a database schema managed by your COTS software can interfere with the vendor's upgrade procedures. As a result, your implementation of the COTS product may be unsupported by the vendor. This can have operational impacts on your business, as you may not be able to easily upgrade to newer versions or easily resolve problems with your COTS system.

Solutions

Determine impact

You are impacted by COTS limitations if your database meets the following criteria:

1. You use a pre-packaged COTS software product with a built-in database

2. You use the main database schema built into the COTS database

3. Your vendor does not explicitly include Liquibase as part of their update process

If you meet all these criteria, you should not use Liquibase to manage changes to that database schema. Instead, you should only use vendor-provided tools for that schema.

When you can use Liquibase

You can use Liquibase to manage changes to any database you manage yourself, external from your COTS software. In this case, Liquibase has no effect on your vendor's COTS software upgrade procedures.

For example, if you use a custom schema, integration, or analytics database separate from your COTS software's built-in database schema, you can use Liquibase on that custom application.