Modeling tools

Question

First off, I'd like to say I was happy to read about this much needed additon to the VSTS family. Way to go, guys!

Now, for my questions:

You've said that this version of TSData will not include data modeling features.  It follows that many of us will have to integrate existing modeling tools with TSData. Are there any features that can be used for that purpose?

Will you present best practices and/or how-tos on this subject?

Does TSData support creating and managing configuration data (by this I mean DB records that must be deployed for applications to work and are created and mantained by the DB dev team)?

Cheers,

           Brian

 

 

 

Answer 1

Hi Brian,

Question 1: Extensibility allowing to hook in existing modeling tools

Answer 1: This has not been worked out; technically it is not impossible but this comes with a serious cost which we do not know if we can handle this for v1.0. We choose to deliver a v1.0 product within 1 year, we started July 1st 2005, development started September 1st 2005 with only 4 people and we are developing full speed since January 1st 2006. This meant we had to make painful decisions, without sacrificing our main objective of delivering tooling for SQL Server schema (change) management, versioning and deployment.

If we will allow this we will be publishing best practices. Anyhow we will be starting to publish set of Power Toys as well which will demonstrate the extensibility possibilities of VSTE DB.

Question 2: Deployment of configuration / stock data

Answer 2: We have the concept of pre- and post deployment scripts, which fully support the SQLCMD command variables for parameterization and inclusion of other files. This can be used for publishing data that you want to deploy with you schema. In the future we will create more specific provisioning for data which comes as part of the schema.

-GertD

Answer 2

I don't agree with the reasoning for keeping modeling tools out of the v1 release. It's obvious that you guys now have support from Microsoft on the project, and there is already a really rich modeling solution already in place with Whitehorse... can't you guys add more resources and plug into that? What are the Whitehorse guys working on now?

Answer 3

I am not sure I read this the way you do. The reply is not stating they will not include any modeling, but that extensibility is not supported for the RTM release. IF I am reading this incorrectly, someone correct me. The modeling is not present in the CTP, as I understand it (installing now), but extensibility is the issue of this post. Am I off base on these assumptions?

Answer 4

Gregory, you are correct, my post was about extensibility, and also about out-of-the-box support for third-party ER modeling tools, since in previous posts it had been made clear that modeling would not be directly supported in v1.0.

Now I've had a first look at the CTP I thought I might expand on what I mean by integration.

If you are using CA ERwin you can generate a DDL script, but it will be just one long script, same as the result of building your project in TSData. It does not generate anything even close to the TSData project structure.

I might want to use ERwin as the source of say, tables, views and constraints, and then add programmability and other SQL Serer specific components in TSData, managing the whole thing under TFS or SS source control.

In that case  I'd probably like to be able to link the TSData project elements to the ERwin model elements and have some mechanism to keep them in synch.

Since everything is brought together in TSData I'd want to manage the inrtegration  from TSData rather than the modeling tool.

Cheers,

           Brian

 

Answer 5

I like the direction MS is going with this tool, although I wish it were more fettered out at this point (I know, wish in this hand, spit in this hand and see which one fills up first ).

Having gotten involved in the Agile approach to DB changes lately, these tools make a good start for using this approach in an MS environment. If MS can extend this paradigm to other RDBMSs in the future, it will be a full competitor. As I work primarily with SQL Server, I could personally care less either way.

GB