VSTS DB Team Blog

What’s new for Data Dude in Visual Studio 2010?

The Data Dude 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.

Quest is live with the first Beta of their DSP for Oracle!

We've been working closely with Quest for some time now, and the time is finally here that you can download and check out their fantastic beta release of Project Fuze.  I installed a version of Oracle Express yesterday and also installed the Project Fuze beta on my VSTS 2010 Beta 1 machine, and I have to say that the Project Fuze beta is impressive.  One thing that caught my eye right away is that they have a graphical table designer integrated right into their project system, and it's a good thing because it's been many years since I've written any PL/SQL!  They have tons of other VSDB features already implemented that you know and love.   

Please pull down a copy of the Project Fuze beta, and give Daniel and Daniel over at Quest feedback on this impressive first beta.  You can read more about it on the Project Fuze blog or on Terry Clancy's blog post from earlier this morning.

Congratulations to the entire team over at Quest, they have been working hard for a long time, and it really shows in the quality of this beta.  Keep up the great work Quest!

Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition GDR R2

The RTM version of Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition GDR R2 is now available for customers to download.  The GDR R2 version is the most current release of Database Edition that adds support for SQL Server 2008 and numerous new features. See the GDR R2 download page for more details. The GDR R2 is available to all customers through the same Microsoft Download channel customers acquired the GDR from. The previous version of the GDR is no longer available.

 

We appreciate customers who participated in service release candidate evaluation program and confirmed fixes in that limited release.  

 

Version Upgrade 

• Customers currently using the [9.1.31124.01] version of GDR should upgrade to GDR R2 version [9.1.40413.00] to get the latest set of fixes available for the product.
• Customers currently using Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition [9.0.30729.1 SP] should upgrade to GDR R2. It is not necessary to install the GDR prior to installing GDR R2. A project upgrade for projects previously created with the GDR is required when upgrading to GDR R2, but the upgraded project will stay compatible with the GDR. A project upgrade for projects previously created with the Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition [9.0.30729.1 SP] is required when upgrading to GDR R2 resulting in upgraded projects that are only compatible with GDR and GDR R2.
• Customers who have installed the Visual Studio 2008 Database Edition GDR v2 RC1 will need to uninstall the GDR RC version [9.1.40320.00] to successfully install the GDR R2. No project upgrade will be necessary for these customers.   

The issues fixed in GDR R2 follows:

Note: The GDR R2 release notes identify these fixes with specific repro steps of how the issue is caused in the GDR version.

 

Import Schema

1.  Import Schema from database may fail when product encounters special characters in schema or object name.

2.  Import Schema from database always adds permissions to model regardless of the option specified.

 

Schema Validation

1.  Aliased external objects do not resolve.

2.  Permission type "SEND" is a database level permission.

3.  Permissions with multiple INCLUDE or EXCLUDE treatment on its columns generates invalid error.

4.  Common Table Expressions (CTE) names should respect the case-sensitivity.

5.  Adding a permission with the object name defined as a zero string crashes VS.

6.  OpenXML generates invalid warnings or errors in SQL 2000 database projects

7.  Sub-queries defined at the column level should be able to reference table sources of the SELECT statement.

8.  References to some SQL CLR Assemblies cannot be resolved causing invalid reference errors.

9.  Schema Bound VIEWs with CAST function produces invalid error.

10. Validation of Database.sqlpermissions is very slow.

11. XQuery clauses generate invalid warnings or errors in database projects.

12. UNION statements containing unmatched or uneven parentheses generate invalid syntax errors.

 

Schema Compare

1.  Visual Studio crashes when comparing a composite project (which has reference to server project) to a database on server with insufficient privileges.

2.  Schema Compare option to limit comparison to only objects defined in the source does not work.

3.  Schema Compare option to ignore Database Role Membership does not work.

4.  Schema Compare write updates to project comments out all children objects when the parent object is ignored in the comparison.

5.  Visual Studio crashes when comparing some databases with a encrypted Table Valued Function.

6.  Schema Compare write updates to project comments out some parameters when a stored procedure is skipped in the update action.

 

Refactoring

1.  Preservation of Intent doesn't handle creating a new object using a name that was previously refactor renamed.

2.  Deployment fails after a refactor rename operation on a table that has an extended property on a column.

 

Static Code Analysis

1.  SR0014: Maintain compatibility between data types rule throws an exception when analyzing some schemas.

 

Schema Deployment

1.  Some output clauses for parameters in a STORED PROCEDURE body is omitted during deployment.

2.  Composite Projects that have segmented tables and constraints causes an exception during deployment.

3.  Deployment silently fails when it encounters unknown or invalid syntax from the target database.

4.  Deployment is dropping computed columns when updating column collations

5.  Deployment is blocked when computed persisted function column on function change.

6.  Deployment fails with "An item with the same key has already been added" after the project is copied to a new location on disk or when the solution configuration is changed with a specific sequence.

7.  Unable to successfully deploy on French and Italian builds when the deployment could cause data motion (Localization Bug).

 

VSDBCMD Command Line Utility

1.  VSDBCMD.exe throws exception when importing some database schemas.

2.  VSDBCMD.exe throws exception when schema being deployed has multiple references to external dbschema files.

3.  VSDBCMD.exe exits incorrectly with code=0 when it encounters an unexpected exception.

 

Database Project System

1.  SQLCMD Variables and Deployment properties files are not being persisted in the .user file when "My isolated development environment" is selected.

2.  ALTER ANY DATABASE AUDIT and ALTER ANY SERVER AUDIT permissions are not imported from script.

3.  Copying a solution containing a database project with database references to external dbschema files to a new location may causes deployment to encounter an exception.

4.  Visual Studio crash when the .dbmdl file is locked by another process.

 

In order to provide the GDR R2 as soon as possible the following fixes are not included in this release. These fixes will come in a future release.

1.  Preservation of Intent fails during deployment when a PRIMARY KEY is renamed .

2.  Installing the GDR while Visual Studio may cause duplicate menu buttons under the Data menu.

3.  VSDBCMD.exe depends on a registry key which prevents it from running on systems that do not have SSMS or VS installed.

 

If you are experiencing an issue that is not listed above we invite you to submit the issue to the product team through the Microsoft Connect Site.

 

A refresh of the Power Tools is scheduled to be released for the GDR R2 version of the product. Information regarding the availability of the GDR R2 Power Tools will be posted in the coming weeks.

Visual Studio 2008 Database Edition GDR v2 RC1 available (Previously called QFE)

The service Release Candidate (RC) for the Visual Studio 2008 Database Edition GDR is available for customers to evaluate.  This is a limited service release. The RC will be available for a short period followed by the release of the RTM version of the GDR version 2. During the RC period, customers can verify fixes to the issues listed below.  We expect to release the RTM version as soon as we have confirmed acceptance from customers waiting on specific fixes included in this release.

The RC will be provided through the Microsoft Connect Site for registered customers. If you would like to be registered for access to the RC click here to send your request to the team. Access to the RC is limited to a maximum number participants and all requests may not be granted.

Requests to evaluate the RC are no longer being accepted as the team prepares to release the RTM version of the GDR Service Release.   

The RTM version will be available to all customers through the same Microsoft Download channel customers acquired the GDR from. 

This service release can be installed on top of an existing GDR installation. This service release does not require any project upgrade for GDR based projects. This service release may require a project upgrade for some GDR projects, but the project will remain GDR RTM compatible.  The GDR v2 RC1 can be uninstalled and the GDR RTM version reinstalled if you wish. 

The issues included in this service release candidate are listed below:

Schema Validation

1. Aliased external objects do not resolve.
2. Permission type "SEND" is a database level permission.
3. Permissions with multiple INCLUDE or EXCLUDE treatment on its columns generates invalid error.
4. Common Table Expressions (CTE) names should respect the case-sensitivity.
5. Adding a permission with the object name defined as a zero string crashes VS.
6. OpenXML generates invalid warnings or errors in SQL 2000 database projects
7. Sub-queries defined at the column level should be able to reference table sources of the SELECT statement.
8. References to some SQL CLR Assemblies cannot be resolved causing invalid reference errors.
9. Schema Bound VIEWs with CAST function produces invalid error.
10. Validation of Database.sqlpermissions is very slow.

Schema Compare

1. Visual Studio crashes when comparing a composite project (which has reference to server project) to a database on server with insufficient privileges.
2. Schema Compare option to limit comparison to only objects defined in the source does not work.
3. Schema Compare option to ignore Database Role Membership does not work.
4. Schema compare write updates to project comments out all children objects when the parent object is ignored in the comparison.

Refactoring

1. Preservation of Intent doesn't handle creating a new object using a name that was previously refactor renamed.
2. Deployment fails after a refactor rename operation on a table that has an extended property on a column.

Static Code Analysis

1. SR0014: Maintain compatibility between data types rule throws an exception when analyzing some schemas.

Schema Deployment

1. Some output clauses for parameters in a STORED PROCEDURE body is omitted during deployment.
2. Composite Projects that have segmented tables and constraints causes an exception during deployment.
3. Deployment silently fails when it encounters unknown or invalid syntax from the target database.
4. Deployment is dropping computed columns when updating column collations
5. Deployment is blocked when computed persisted function column on function change.
6. Deployment fails with "An item with the same key has already been added" after the project is copied to a new location on disk or when the solution configuration is changed with a specific sequence.

VSDBCMD Command Line Utility

1. VSDBCMD.exe throws exception when importing some database schemas.
2. VSDBCMD.exe throws exception when schema being deployed has multiple references to external dbschema files.
3. VSDBCMD.exe exits incorrectly with code=0 when it encounters an unexpected exception.
4. VSDBCMD.exe depends on a registry key which prevents it from running on systems that do not have SSMS or VS installed.

Database Project System

1. SQLCMD Variables and Deployment properties files are not being persisted in the .user file when "My isolated development environment" is selected.
2. ALTER ANY DATABASE AUDIT and ALTER ANY SERVER AUDIT permissions are not imported from script.
3. Copying a solution containing a database project with database references to external dbschema files to a new location may causes deployment to encounter an exception.
   

Fixes previously communicated in service release, but are not included in this service release:

1. Preservation of Intent fails during deployment when a PRIMARY KEY is renamed .
2. Installing the GDR while Visual Studio is active causes duplicate menu buttons under the Data menu.

These 2 fixes will come in a future release.

A release date has not been established for the GDR v2 RTM service release yet, but we expect to have it out as soon as the RC is verified. We also plan to release the Power Tool refresh shortly after the GDR v2 is out. 

If you are experiencing an issue that is not listed above we invite you to submit the issue to the product team through the Microsoft Connect Site.

We will post an update about the GDR v2 RTM service release and Power Tools release in the coming weeks.

QFE (Patch) for Visual Studio Team System Database Edition GDR coming soon

Since the release of Visual Studio Team System 2008 GDR we have been working towards a solution for issues that were discovered and reported by customers shortly after release.  Since resources had to be assigned to this work, the Power Tool refresh for the GDR has been pushed out a little. A solution to customer issues with the GDR version will be delivered in a QFE (Quick Fix Engineering) service release available to customers who have upgraded their Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition to the current GDR version.  This service release will be available to all customers through the same Microsoft Download channel customers acquired the GDR from.  We do not have a complete list of issues that will be addressed in this service release, but we will soon. The issues that have been prepared to be included in this release as of today are listed below:

Schema Validation
1. Aliased external objects do not resolve.
2. Permission type "SEND" is a database level permission.
3. Permissions with multiple INCLUDE or EXCLUDE treatment on its columns generates invalid error.
4. Common Table Expressions (CTE) names should respect the case-sensitivity.
5. Adding a permission with the object name defined as a zero string crashes VS.
6. OpenXML generates invalid warnings or errors in SQL 2000 database projects
7. Sub-queries defined at the column level should be able to reference table sources of the SELECT statement.
8. References to some SQL CLR Assemblies cannot be resolved causing invalid reference errors.
Schema Compare
1. Visual Studio crash when comparing a composite project (which has reference to server project) to a database on server with insufficient privileges.
2. Schema Compare option to limit comparison to only objects defined in the source does not work.
3. Schema Compare option to ignore Database Role Membership does not work.
4. Schema compare write updates to project comments out all children objects when the parent object is ignored in the comparison.
Refactoring
1. Preservation of Intent doesn’t handle creating a new object using a name that was previously refactored.
2. Preservation of Intent fails during deployment when a PRIMARY KEY is renamed .
Static Code Analysis
1. SR0014: Maintain compatibility between data types rule throws an exception when analyzing some schemas.
Schema Deployment
1. Output clause for parameters in STORED PROCEDURE is omitted during deployment.
2. Composite Projects that have segmented  tables and constraints causes an exception during deployment.
3. Deployment silently fails when it encounters unknown or invalid syntax from the target database.
4. Incremental deployment is dropping computed columns when updating column collations.
VSDBCMD Command Line Utility
1. VSDBCMD.exe throws exception when importing some database schemas.
2. VSDBCMD.exe throws exception when schema being deployed has multiple references to external dbschema files.
3. VSDBCMD.exe exits incorrectly with code=0 when it encounters unexpected exception.
4. VSDBCMD.exe depends on a registry key which prevents it from running on systems that do not have SSMS or VS installed.
Database Project System
1. SQLCMD Variables and Deployment properties files are not being persisted in the .user file when "My isolated development environment" is selected.
2. ALTER ANY DATABASE AUDIT and ALTER ANY SERVER AUDIT permissions are not imported from script.
3. Copying a solution containing a database project with database references to external dbschema files may causes deployment to encounter exception.
Setup
1. Installing the GDR while Visual Studio is active causes duplicate menu buttons under the Data menu.
 

An QFE release date has not been established for this release yet, but we want to let you know we recognize these issues,  are responding to your feedback,  and plan to resolve high priority issues as soon as possible. We expect to release the Power Tool refresh shortly after the QFE is released. 

If you are experiencing an issue that is not listed above we invite you to submit the issue to the product team through the Microsoft Connect Site.

We will post an update about the QFE service release and Power Tools release in the coming weeks.

Oracle support announced for Visual Studio Team System 2010 Development

Today it was announced Oracle support will be available for Visual Studio Team System 2010 Development through a Database Schema Provider (DSP).  Quest, a provider of Database Management Solutions, is developing the Oracle DSP for Visual Studio Team System.   For those working in heterogeneous database environments this is BIG news!

The Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition GDR introduced a new product architecture that provides a model representation of a database schema and extensibility points to expand support for other database platforms.  Third parties can develop DSPs which implement models to expand the support for specific database platforms and versions.  Quest's Oracle DSP will add support to Team System Development for Oracle and will provide the following Oracle based database project features :

• Offline Schema Development
• Import Schema
• Schema Compare
• Data Generation and Unit Testing
• Refactoring
• and more...

Teams that have benefited by using VSTSDB to manage their SQL Server database development will also be able to manage their Oracle database's with the same tool and process integration.

You can read more about Quest's upcoming DSP product here.

Visual Studio Team System Database Edition GDR available in VPC and Hyper-V Images

The current version of Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition (GDR)  is available in VPC and Hyper-V virtual machine images.  The GDR does not support a sideXside install with the previous version so this is great for folks who want to evaluate the GDR version of the product before upgrading.  These images come with the full stack of VSTS 2008 SP1, TFS 2008 SP1, and SQL Server 2005 SP2 and are preconfigured so you can start using the products right away.  These evaluation images are good through December 31, 2009.

 

Microsoft® Visual Studio® Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server SP1 and Team Suite SP1 VPC Image (Trial)

 

Microsoft® Visual Studio® Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server SP1 and Team Suite SP1 Hyper-V Image (Trial)

 

Visual Studio Team System Development and Database Editions Merged

We continue to receive questions about the merge of Visual Studio Team System Development and Database Editions. While the announcement occurred last year, the content regarding this announcement is no longer available on MSDN.  We are reposting here with excerpt from the press announcement:

In another move to increase integration across the life cycle, Microsoft also announced that VSTS 2010 will provide a unified VSTS Development and Database product. As a benefit to existing Software Assurance (SA) customers, those who currently own Visual Studio Team System 2008 Development Edition or Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition will receive all the following products starting Oct. 1, 2008, for free:

•	Visual Studio Team System 2008 Development Edition
•	Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition
•	Visual Studio 2005 Team System for Software Developers
•	Visual Studio 2005 Team System for Database Professionals

The products will be available to SA customers through their normal Microsoft Developer Network channel

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/sep08/09-29VS10PR.mspx

Keywords: Better Together; Database Edition; Development Edition; Merge; Combined; Free; Data Dude; DB Pro; DBPro

Welcome to the new Visual Studio Team System Database Team Blog

Welcome Everyone!

Some of you that follow Gert Draper's blog regarding all things Data Dude may have read that Gert Drapers has taken on a new challenge within Microsoft.  Gert's knowledge, vision, and direction will be missed. 

Gert's blog has been the primary source of late breaking product news for the last 3 years.  This blog has been created to continue providing this information to our user community.  The latest information regarding Visual Studio Team System Database Edition will be contributed by members of the VSTSDB Product Team and posted here. 

Other VSTSDB Resources:     

• Data Dude's Notes - Patrick Sirr's blog
• DBPROJ.COM - Gert Draper's web site
• MSDN Database Edition - Product documentation
• VSTSDB Best Practices - Barclay Hill's blog
• VSTSDB MSDN Forum - Answers to specific faqs, questions, and general product information.