What’s new for Database Projects in Visual Studio 2010?

The Database Edition functionality in Visual Studio 2010 is based on our GDR release. If you have been using the GDR this is what is “new:”

Project Features

• The Data Dude project system is now available in Visual Studio Professional. We did this so developers using Visual Studio Professional could load, edit, build and deploy database projects that were created using Visual Studio Premium or Ultimate. What’s really cool is Visual Studio Professional users can now do declarative database development! Of course, if they want all the cool ALM tools they need to get the Ultimate edition. See the chart below for details about how the various ALM features light up depending on the version of Visual Studio you are using.
• Implemented a new Data-tier Application project type. For more information see this blog post: What is a Visual Studio 2010 Data-tier Application project-

Code Authoring

• T-SQL Editor, IntelliSense and code snippets – We worked with the SQL team to integrate the editor from SQL Server 2008 R2 into Visual Studio 2010
• T-SQL Debugger – We worked with the SQL team to integrate the debugger from SQL Server 2008 R2 into Visual Studio 2010

Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Features

The following matrix describes which ALM features are available in which Visual Studio editions and how they behave. Specifically, where it says you may “Execute” a feature in Visual Studio Professional that means you may do not have the ability modify the artifact (for example a Unit Test) but you may execute it.

Feature	Visual Studio Professional	Visual Studio Premium and Ultimate
Schema Compare		ü
Data Compare		ü
Unit Test	Execute	ü
Refactoring		ü
Static Code Analysis	Execute	ü
Data Generation	Execute	ü
TFS Build Integration	ü	ü
Command line deploy	ü	ü

TFS Build Integration

The Data Dude bits are now installed when you install a TFS Build Agent. You no longer need to install Visual Studio Team System Database Edition on your TFS Build server in order to build database projects. Database projects have first class support in TFS build. You may build, deploy, run SQL static code analysis and database unit tests. Sweet!

Extensibility

This is such a large topic that it will require a series of blog posts. Stay tuned.

Comments

• Anonymous
  February 15, 2010
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  February 16, 2010
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  May 14, 2010
  The link to "What is a Visual Studio 2010 Data-tier Application project" has very little info.  Maybe a link to something real could be added?

• Anonymous
  May 14, 2010
  You can find more info on MSDN here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee210546(v=SQL.105).aspx Thanks,

• Anonymous
  June 29, 2010
  "This is such a large topic that it will require a series of blog posts. Stay tuned." Can't find any such posts at blogs.msdn.com/.../2010 Do they exist?

• Anonymous
  June 30, 2010
  Hi Jamie, You can find posts regarding extensibility on my blog here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/bahill. There are also new samples on MSDN here: msdn.microsoft.com/.../aa833285.aspx.

• Anonymous
  July 08, 2010
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  July 11, 2010
  HI, what are the limitations of VS2010 with DB projects. They seems to be supported at some extent. Can a developer using VS2010 enhance DB projects by creating/altering objects (tables, sproc, etc.) Thanks, Christian

• Anonymous
  July 11, 2010
  Database Projects in VS 2010 are limited by the product they are installed with. If installing VS Professional not features are available or fully capable. If installing VS Premium or Ultimate all features are available.