[From MySQL AB
Managing database change is an incredibly important discipline that very few database professionals overtly talk or worry about until they're in the thick of things with a particular database - moving it from development to production, making changes to a newly installed production database, or implementing an updated version of the database (new tables, modifications to existing objects, etc.) in a SaaS application. It's at that point where change management becomes very important because if you don't do things right the first time, you can make a royal mess of things and even (in a small number of cases) reach the point of no return where you've completely torched your database.
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