SQL Server Development Tools (SSDT) - ‘Juneau’ - brings testing, debugging, version control, refactoring, dependency checking, and deployment to database development in Visual Studio. It was previewed recently along with SQL Server ‘Denali’ CTP.
Some of the features in the preview are -
- New Testing and Debugging method which works with a local database that’s created automatically for each database project
- Schema Compare – for comparing a SQL Server Project Schema to a target database and highlight differences
- Publish Database feature, that supports both onsite SQL Server as well as SQL Azure
- Declarative database development through Power Buffer
- Enhanced TSQL editor with features like IntelliSense, Go To Definition and Find All References, Refactor contextual menu and more, similar to C# and VB editors in Visual Studio
There is a blog post from the SSDT team that outlines all the planned features in SSDT - one major feature missing in the preview is the Application Project and Database Integration, which is meant to give build-time dependency checking between Application and Database tiers. The preview also misses quite a few features present in Visual Studio Database Projects as noted by Milo Hoffman. Some of these missing features might eventually get added before SSDT is actually released.
Although the preview works with Visual Studio 2010, SSDT will finally ship with the next version of Visual Studio. It will also be available as a standalone version using the Visual Studio Shell.
You can find more information about Juneau and download the preview from the product website.