I began using this tool last year and I fell in love with it almost instantly. Briefly, this tool allows you to:
- Script your SQL Server database and put scripts under source control. This is useful when you to know precisely which version of a specific database object (table, stored procedure, etc.) was deployed with version n of an application.
- Manage databases in the same tool (Visual Studio) that you use to develop your applications.
- Deploy the database (either completely or incrementally) to specific servers from Visual Studio. You can also use build your database project, which produce a SQL file, and send it to DBA for deployment.
- You can have pre and post deployment scripts that permits specific actions ( create logins, assign DB roles, insert medatada into static tables, etc.). These scripts are embedded into the final SQL script for deployment.
- Generate data for testing purpose. With power tools installed, get specific data from another database or server in order to give developer valid data for development.
- Generate unit tests for stored procedures. Combined with data generator, you could deploy a database and test its stored procedures immediately.
- The project is known as the truth version of the database. It's very helpful when you want to deploy the database on other environments or servers. You do not have to rely on production database, reverse engineer objects in order to have the right version.
I will blog more on it in future posts. So, if you are interested, stay tuned! 😉
Labels: VSDB
ETL/BI-blogger 
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