Extricating these precious and bulky data items from the database is not as easy as it may seem.  The immutable nature of scanned paper documents and other media is of tremendous help.  You can allocate a 128-bit UUID for the document and store the document somewhere else.  This identifier can then be kept in the database associated with some relational record.

self maintained rdms

The ability to automate testing early in your development process clearly applies as much to databases as it does any other code or architecture within your system. To make this happen, you will have to get your database into a source control system and create the automation necessary to leverage that system. However, as we’ve shown here, these various processes can be put together in support of your needs for your own Continuous Integration process, even on your databases.