We run an internal web server with in-house software to run a manufacturing line.

When new product features are to be added, either or both of the following occur:

1. changes to the in-house server software may be required to support these - these are for significant changes in functionality, being code drive.
2. changes to the MySQL database for new entries for the part numbers, these are for smaller changes, configurations, changes to already existing values and parameters -- such changes don't require code changes. Ideally we'd want our changes to be here rather than in item 1.

Item 1 is version controlled in Subversion, so previous revisions can be referred to for rolling back to in the event of problems introduced in the latest revision.

But what about changes to the MySQL database?

We have quality processes to ensure that such changes are error-free but there is always a chance that errors can pass through, e.g. mistake in data entry or faults with the code that uses the MySQL corrupting the database etc.

We have a automated backup every 6 hours but what if we want more manual defined checkpoints in between these intervals, we could use the same backup system but I wondered if folks here used other methods to store previous states of databases, e.g. exporting the database as a plain text SQL dump -- at least with this method it would be possible to see diffs e.g. in Beyond Compare for trouble shooting.

Thoughts?