[bob1029]

Our trick is to use SQLite to completely side-step the concern of maintaining any sort of central testing database. Each developer can clone a fresh copy, load the .sln, hit F5, and every database required by the application is immediately available within the same process. There is absolutely no other software required to be installed.

This also makes it infinitely easier to coordinate complex schema changes. Each developer can sort it all out on their local branch before we even know about it. If we had to share some common test database, this would become a much more painful process.

Also, I do not believe in using mock layers for the database interactions. Our service implementations are tightly-coupled with their backing datastore. This is the only way we are able to make SQLite a viable storage medium for a high-throughput business application. As a consequence, testing our services in absence of their concrete datastores would be an extremely disingenuous endeavor for us.

[squiggleblaz]

Are you using SQLite as your main production datastore or you're using sqlite as a standin for something else? It sounds like production. One db file or several? How big? Can you summarise the non-test benefits and costs?