Given that a dacpac can now deploy data, why would I ever need bacpacs?

Question

Hi,

I found an article here which basically says that the difference between a dacpac & a bacpac is:

"A BACPAC, on the other hand, is focused on capturing schema and data. A BACPAC is the logical equivalent of a database backup and cannot be used to upgrade existing databases. The primary use case for a BACPAC is to move a database from one server to another - or from a local server to the cloud - and archiving an existing database in an open format."

Here's where I get a bit confused. As of the September 2012 release of DacFX a dacpac can now deploy data as well: "Extract DACPAC with data – Creates a database snapshot file (.dacpac) from a live SQL Server or Windows Azure SQL Database that contains data from user tables in addition to the database schema"

Given that a dacpac can now deploy data, why would I ever need bacpacs?

thanks
Jamie

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ObjectStorageHelper<T> – A WinRT utility for Windows 8 | http://sqlblog.com/blogs/jamie_thomson/ | @jamiet | About me

Answer 1

I tend to agree, BACPACs are a left over of the past more then anything.The main reason will be that most of the existing tooling, SSMS 2012, the Azure management portal and teh Azure Import Export service, only support BACPACs.

Right now the data support between the two is identical, DACPAC are or were supposed to add incremental data deployment, as right now it expects an empty table to load the data in to. Overtime I expect BACPAC to fade away and its usage to be replaced by DACPAC with data.

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-GertD @ www.sqlproj.com

Answer 2

Good, I thought I was missing something. Thanks Gert.

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ObjectStorageHelper<T> – A WinRT utility for Windows 8 | http://sqlblog.com/blogs/jamie_thomson/ | @jamiet | About me