How to manage database schema changes

Managing database schema changes is crucial in maintaining accurate and actionable data. Schema changes include adding or removing tables, modifying column properties, changing relationships between tables, and altering indexes. These changes can have both upstream and downstream effects on connected systems, potentially causing broken references, invalid data types for operations, decreased performance, inconsistencies in data, and data governance issues. To mitigate these risks, effective schema change management should involve using lineage tracking, running end-to-end tests, monitoring performance, ensuring data consistency, enforcing data governance protocols, communicating with stakeholders, having a rollback plan, using staging environments, implementing versioning, and addressing upstream risks such as data integrity issues, data entry conflicts, performance degradation, broken ETL jobs, and compatibility issues with external systems.