Share and deploy dbmeta files

Question

 

Hi all

 

I downloaded the recently released SR1 and Power Tools, and I'd like to know if the following scenario is covered regarding the new "database references" feature:

 

We develop .NET/3 tiers applications for our clients. Each application is customized for each client, however most of them have a common codebase. We have a shared DLL between all apps for this common functionality, but this code also relies in common database objects. So if we change the common code we can update each client application simply copying the DLL in each project, but if we change the database schema we must synchronize the database project manually.

 

We'd like to know if we can do the same with the .dbmeta files so we can easily deploy/synchronize database changes distributing both dll and dbmeta files to all our programmers, so they can reference it in each customized project. Is this an scenario supported by SR1?

We don't know either the way that our programmers would deploy the updated dbmeta file, is it possible to sync/deploy from a .dbmeta file to a database? Or maybe they should reference the file from the customized db project and then deploy all the project?

 

thanks in advance !

Jacobo

 

Answer 1

I am afraid this will not work for a couple of reasons:

1) a .dbmeta or dbproj based database references can only contribute to a different database name then the one represented by the project that contains the reference to dbmeta file for other dbproj. The goal of database references is to support cross database and cross server references, not to split up a singel database in two pieces. This is a very common request we are receiving from users and we are working on adding this in Visual Studio Team System "Rosario" version.

 

2) You cannot deploy from a dbmeta file. So you would not be able to update your database from it, you need a project. In Visual Studio Team System "Rosario" build will therefore produce an intermediate output that can be used by the deployment engine.

 

-GertD

 

Answer 2

 

Hi Gert

Thaks for your answers! I'm glad you're already working on these scenarios.
Is there an official/unofficial list of features that the "Rosario" Data Dude version will support?

 

Regards

Answer 3

No this is stiull too far out. The main thing we are doing is enabling other database support through the introduction of a database schema provider, which makes it possible to plug in other databases like Oracle, MySQL or DB2.

 

Just to be clear we will (that is Microsoft) only enable the extensibility we will not create provders for other databases, others will provide these.

 

We are also adding support for SQL Server 2008 as might be expected.

 

The rest is still under development and can still change. In November we will now what will be in there.

 

-GertD