SQL Azure -- VS.NET Database Project and/or Data Tier Project support?

Question

I am familiar with SQL Azure Explorer, but...

Will Visual Studio 2010 support SQL Azure in either Database Projects (e.g. like VS.NET 2008 Database Edition does for SQL 2005/2008) or in the new Data Tier projects? If so are they supported in the RC of VS 2010? If not... any plans? When?

Answer 1

VS2010 supports Data Tier projects (Beta 2) and should do so in the RC. I have not installed RC yet. Beta 2 also supported VB and C# SQL CLR Database Projects. All of these under Datbase templates.
However I have not tested with SQL Azure.

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mysorian

I don't believe it can support Data Tier projects with SQL Azure since you do not have support for this in SQL Server 2008 R2's SSMS.l

Answer 2

Hello, currently VS 2010 Database projects do not support SQL Azure directly. The script generated by Visual Studio contains a lot of features that are incompatible with SQL Azure. But you can first deploy the database project to a local SQL Server, and then use SSMS 2008 R2's "Generate scripts" feature to port the database to SQL Azure as described in http://blogs.msdn.com/sateeshp/archive/2010/01/01/seven-benefits-for-using-the-sql-server-management-studio-ssms-for-managing-the-sql-azure-database.aspx. This approach works fine for me. That is: Develop against local SQL Server using Visual Studio, and then deploy to SQL Azure using SSMS.

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Lante, shanaolanxing This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Answer 3

Jayaram, I am already aware that Data Tier projects are in Visual Studio 2010, the question is whether or not they support SQL Azure. Also, you do have support for SQL Azure in SQL 2008's SSMS R2 -- I'm not sure if you were trying to say that you don't or if you meant that you don't have support for data tier projects in SSMS R2?

Answer 4

Yi-Lun,

Thank you for clarifying and for the additional information you provided.

While it is certainly helpful to be able to use SSMS R2 to "Generate scripts" for SQL Azure, this really only addresses a one-time deployment to Azure (or a schema copy from Azure back down to a local database, but without the data). It flat-out misses the normal use case of ongoing development and updates to a maturing website. For example, you can use Schema Compare in VSDB to aid in the generation of migration scripts. Data Tier projects have similar, even enhanced, functionality for updating a target database with new schema (and possibly data) changes.

Perhaps the SQL Azure team can lobby the VSDB team to add support for SQL Azure databases as a project type. This would allow these enhanced productivity tools to be used. As it currently stands, a great deal of manual labor would be involved in trying to pull down the production schema from a SQL Azure database to a local environment and/or generating migration scripts which then need to be hand modified and thoroughly tested before running them against a SQL Azure database. At the very least, the ability to take a snapshot of an Azure database, restore it to a local SQL 2008 server, do schema compares, and then modify the output to be Azure compatible, would be very useful. Even better though would be the ability to run Schema Compare directly from VSDB against a SQL Azure database.

Answer 5

Please consider this to be a request for support for SQL Azure Database Projects in VSDB 2008 as well as VS2010 for both Database Projects and Data Tier Projects. See also http://sql-dotnet.blogspot.com/2010/02/sql-azure-pros-and-cons.html

Answer 6

Hi PRIMARQ,

The Data-tier Application projects in VS 2010 RTM will have partial support for SQL Azure. It allows you to connect directly to SQL Azure databse and import your schema in the project using the 'Import Data-tier Application' wizard. You can also deploy the schema back to SQL Azure service. However, upgrading the target database is not supported i.e. its a one time deployment. The data copying will require manual steps.

Answer 7

I'd like to second (or third) these requests.  Database Projects are fantastic for my purposes, and being unable to use my Database Project to automatically deploy to SQL Azure as my production database is a blow. I have no doubt it will come in time; clearly that's the direction Microsoft is going in.  But sooner would definitely be better for me.

Thanks,

David Cater

Answer 8

I'd like to third (or fourth) these requests, I am sure this is being worked on ? But right now its sucking time in a major way. 

Answer 9

You folks might want to check out SQL Server Developer Tools, Codenamed "Juneau" that's available here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/data/tools.aspx. SSDT is an evolution of the existing Visual Studio Database project type and also supports DACPACs and deploying to SQL Azure.

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Sanjay Nagamangalam Principal Program Manager, SQL Server Manageability