The latest community technology preview of Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition is now available on our download site.

In addition to providing support for SQL Server 2008 database projects, this release incorporates many previously released Power Tools as well as several new features. The new features include distinct Build and Deploy phases, Static Code Analysis and improved integration with SQL CLR projects.

Database Edition no longer requires a Design Database. Therefore, it is no longer necessary to install an instance of SQL Express or SQL Server prior to using Database Edition.

The release supports new features in SQL Server 2008 including

  • Intrinsic data types: date, datetime2, datetimeoffset, time
  • Built-in SQL CLR types: geography, geometry, hierarchyid

Other features in this release include:

  • Updates to how projects are handled within Database Edition including support for partial projects and composite projects
  • Single sourcing of SQL-CLR objects
  • The Build process now produces a separate portable schema output that is fed in to a redistributable deployment engine
  • A redistributable deployment engine. For example, to implement a setup application that deploys the Database Project
  • Preservation of intent during refactoring and new refactoring operations
  • Additional schema compare features
  • T-SQL static code analysis
  • Dependency viewer
  • Unit testing
  • Data generation capabilities
  • Extensibility

To take advantage of the CTP, you must have Microsoft® Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition (English) or Microsoft® Visual Studio Team System 2008 Suite (English) and Microsoft® Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 Beta.

For more information and to download the update, see Microsoft® Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition GDR July CTP.

Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition provides advanced tools for database change management and testing and offers functionality to enable database developers and administrators to be more productive and increase application quality in the database tier.