The SQL Server Data Tools team is pleased to announce an update for SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) is now available. The SSDT 16.4 release adds support for Schema Compare in SqlPackage.exe and as an API, Integrated Workspace Mode for SSDT Tabular, and as usual has various bug fixes.

Get it here:

Download SSDT GA 16.4 for Visual Studio 2015 and Visual Studio 2013

• The version number for GA in Visual Studio 2015 is 14.0.60918.0 (Direct link: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/mt186501)
• The version number for GA in Visual Studio 2013 is 12.0.60918.0 (Direct link: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/dn864412)

This release will be available through Visual Studio Extensions and Updates notification soon.

Download Data-Tier Application Framework 16.4

• The version number is 13.0.3450.1
• You can also install as a nuget package, e.g. for use in Powershell or your own app integration scenarios:
  • x64 package is here
  • x86 package is here

What’s new in SSDT?

Database Tools

Schema Compare is now supported in SqlPackage.exe and the Data-Tier Application Framework (DacFx) API. To learn more please read Schema Compare in SqlPackage and the Data-Tier Application Framework.

Analysis Services – Integrated Workspace Mode for SSDT Tabular (SSAS)

SSDT Tabular now includes an internal SSAS instance, which SSDT Tabular starts automatically in the background if integrated workspace mode is enabled so that you can add and view tables, columns, and data in the model designer without having to provide an external workspace server instance. Integrated workspace mode does not change how SSDT Tabular works with a workspace server and database. What changes is where SSDT Tabular hosts the workspace database. To enable integrated workspace mode, select the Integrated Workspace option in the Tabular Model Designer dialog box displayed when creating a new tabular project. For existing tabular projects that currently use an explicit workspace server, you can switch to integrated workspace mode by setting the Integrated Workspace Mode parameter to True in the Properties window, which is displayed when you select the Model.bim file in Solution Explorer.

For more information please read this Analysis Services blog post.

Fixed / Improved this month

Database Tools

Connect Issue 3087775 – SSDT: temporal tables broken in VS Data Tools July update 14.0.60629.0, “Value cannot be null. Parameter name: reportedElement”

Connect Issue 1026648 – IsPersistedNullable shows as different in SSDT Comparison

Connect Issue 2054735 – Identity is reset when importing a BACPAC

Connect Issue 2900167 – Running SSDT unit tests leaves temp files behind

Connect Issue 1807712 – Backwards compatibility breakage – AppLocal and Nugetization

Analysis Services & Reporting Services

Contact us:

If you have any question or feedback, please ping @sqldatatools on twitter, visit our forum and for bugs please create bug reports on our Microsoft Connect page. We are fully committed to improve the SSDT experience and look forward to hearing from you!

The SQL Server Data Tools team is pleased to announce an update for SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) is now available. The SSDT 16.5 release adds a number of improvements to the connection experience, SqlPackage and DacFx API support for generating a deployment report and scripts during publish, and as usual a number of bug fixes across the tool.

Get it here:

Download SSDT GA 16.5 for Visual Studio 2015 and Visual Studio 2013

• The version number for GA in Visual Studio 2015 is 14.0.61021.0 (Direct link: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/mt186501)
• The version number for GA in Visual Studio 2013 is 12.0.61021.0 (Direct link: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/dn864412)

This release will be available through Visual Studio Extensions and Updates notification soon.

Download Data-Tier Application Framework 16.5

• The version number is 13.0.3485.1
• You can also install as a nuget package, e.g. for use in Powershell or your own app integration scenarios:
  • x64 package is here
  • x86 package is here

What’s new in SSDT?

Database Tools

Connection Improvements

Managing your server and database connections is even easier than before.

• The new search box in the Browse tab helps you filter your Local servers, Network servers and Azure SQL Databases. This is very useful if (like us) you have a large number of servers or databases appearing in these lists.
• The History tab has right-click menu options to pin / unpin favorites, and a new option to remove connections from the History.

SqlPackage and DacFx API Improvements

Using SqlPackage.exe and the DacFx APIs you can now generate a deployment report, deployment script, and publish to a database all in one action. This is a timesaver for anyone who likes to keep a report of what was published during a deployment. Another benefit is that for Azure scenarios, separate scripts for the master database and the deploy target database are created. Up to now a single script was created which was not useful for repeated deployments.

For SqlPackage’s Publish and Script actions, two new arguments have been added.

• DeployScriptPath (shortname: dsp). This is an optional path to write the deployment script to. For Azure deployment, if there were TSQL commands to create of modify the DB a master script will be written to the same path but with “Filename_Master.sql” as the output file name.
• DeployReportPath (shortname: drp). This is an optional path to write the deployment report to.

Note that for the Script action, either the existing Output Path arguments or the new script/report-specific arguments should be used, but not both.

Sample usage:

In DacFx, two new APIs have been added: DacServices.Publish() and DacServices.Script(). These also support performing publish + script + report actions in a single operation. Sample usage:

DacServices service = new DacServices(connectionString);
using(DacPackage package = DacPackage.Load(@"C:\My\db.dacpac")) {
var options = new PublishOptions() {
    GenerateDeploymentScript = true, // Should a deployment script be created?
    GenerateDeploymentReport = true, // Should an xml deploy report be created?
    DatabaseScriptPath = @"C:\My\OutputScript.sql", // optional path to save script to
    MasterDbScriptPath = @"C:\My\OutputScript_Master.sql", // optional path to save master script to
    DeployOptions = new DacDeployOptions()
};

// Call publish and receive deployment script & report in the results
PublishResult result = service.Publish(package, "TargetDb", options);
Console.WriteLine(result.DatabaseScript);
Console.WriteLine(result.MasterDbScript);
Console.WriteLine(result.DeploymentReport);

// Call script and receive deployment script & report in results
result = service.Script(package, "TargetDb", options);
Console.WriteLine(result.DatabaseScript);
Console.WriteLine(result.MasterDbScript);
Console.WriteLine(result.DeploymentReport);

Analysis Services & Reporting Services

SSAS tabular designer DAX parser has improved performance when working with large DAX expressions.

For more information, please read this Analysis Services blog post.

Fixed / Improved this month

Database Tools

Analysis Services & Reporting Services

Integration Service

­­­Contact us:

If you have any question or feedback, please ping @sqldatatools on twitter, visit our forum and for bugs please create bug reports on our Microsoft Connect page. We are fully committed to improve the SSDT experience and look forward to hearing from you!

It’s been a busy few months for SSDT with multiple Release Candidate releases of the 17.0 major release, and Visual Studio 2017 shipping this week. Here’s a quick update on the latest & greatest database tools updates you can try out.

SQL Server Data Tools 17.0 RC3

Today we’re announcing SSDT 17.0 RC3 release for Visual Studio 2015. SSDT 17.0 is a major update with support for SQL Server vNext and the latest Azure SQL DB features built in. We’ve released multiple RCs and are well on our way towards a GA release that’s supported against production instances.

Download the latest release candidate here.

New in SSDT 17.0 RC3: Ignore Column Order when publishing Database Projects

One of the most requested features for database project publishing is now finally here. If you’ve ever had to deal with accidental data motion when putting a column in the middle of a table definition, you’ll know how hard this can be to spot and manage. In this release you can now check the “Ignore Column Order” option in the Advanced Publish Options. This will append new columns to the end of an existing table rather than altering the table structure to add the column in its listed position.

For a full list of features for all project types see the release notes on the SSDT 17.0 Release Candidate download page.

Visual Studio 2017

Visual Studio 2017 includes SSDT relational DB support: Database Projects, Schema Compare, Data Compare, SQL Server Object Explorer and more. The Data Storage and Processing workload is optimized for DB developers, but SSDT is a recommended option in most other workloads including ASP.Net and Web Development. We encourage you to try out the new, more lightweight Visual Studio today!

Support for Analysis Services and Reporting Services BI project types is available in the VS2017 Gallery on launch day. 

• Microsoft Analysis Services Modeling Projects
• Microsoft Report Projects for Visual Studio

To download Visual Studio 2017 and learn more about the exciting new features in this release, see www.visualstudio.com.

FAQ

When will all BI Projects be supported in VS2017?

Support for Analysis Services and Reporting Services BI project types is available in the VS2017 Gallery on launch day.  Support for Integration Services for Visual Studio 2017 is in progress, but is not yet available on launch day. For now we recommend using SSDT for VS2015 if you need to use all of the BI project types together in a solution, but stay tuned to this blog for updates on this.

When will SQL Server vNext & other SSDT 17.0 features be supported in VS2017?

We’re focused on bringing SSDT 17.0 to GA quality in the coming months. After this happens, we’ll work to ship this updated code into a future Visual Studio 2017 update. Please note that Visual Studio 2017, database project updates are shipped via the built-in updater instead of a separate setup executable. This makes install & management much easier, but does mean that releases align with the Visual Studio release schedule rather than shipping on an ad-hoc basis. With this change, SSDT updates for Visual Studio 2017 will generally ship after updates to SSMS and other tools.

Will there be additional feature updates to SSDT in Visual Studio 2013?

No. SSDT supports the most recent 2 versions of Visual Studio, with our features shipping in both versions wherever possible. With the release of Visual Studio 2017, we are ceasing to ship feature updates to Visual Studio 2013. This release will continue to be supported via the Microsoft support lifecycle, meaning any vital security fixes and similar important fixes will be released. We recommend updating to the latest version of Visual Studio to keep getting our most up to date features.

What tools does Visual Studio 2017 have for database development?

Visual Studio 2017 has several features specific to database development to keep developers more productive, while ensuring that application’s data and schemas are part of the DevOps best practices (automatic deployment, continuous integration). Developers can leverage SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) included in all Visual Studio editions. Additionally on Visual Studio 2017, developers can leverage Redgate Data Tools. SQL Search is available in all editions, and SQL Prompt Core and ReadyRoll Core are available for VS 2017 Enterprise subscribers.

• SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) turns Visual Studio into a powerful development environment for SQL Server, Azure SQL Database and Azure SQL Data Warehouse. With SSDT, developers can visually design, build, debug, test, maintain, refactor, deploy, source control and enable continuous integration & continuous deployment for their databases with a declarative model that spans all the phases of database development. Developers can work offline with a database project, or directly with a connected database instance in Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Data Warehouse, and SQL Server running on Windows, Linux, Docker and in Azure or any cloud.
• With ReadyRoll Core, users can develop, source control, and safely automate deployments of database changes, alongside application changes. This means the same tools used for application development can be utilized for database development and deployment, and ensures a single source of truth for both application and database changes. ReadyRoll’s migrations-based approach gives developers more control over the end database deployment script and can be easily integrated into DevOps processes, such as continuous integration and continuous delivery.
• With SQL Prompt Core users can increase productivity with advanced IntelliSense-style code completion in Visual Studio.
• SQL Search allows users to quickly search for SQL objects across databases. Together, Redgate Data Tools help to ensure database development is not the bottleneck to continuously delivering value to end users.

Can these tools help me with continuous integration & continuous deployment scenarios?

Yes, both SSDT Database Projects and ReadyRoll can be used to include the database in your CI and CD processes. ReadyRoll is an alternative to SSDT Database Projects that allows developers to have more control over the end database deployment script.

Read more about the differences between these in the “Which tool should I use” question.

• For SSDT, learn more about CI/CD at https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/ssdt/2016/04/06/sqldb-cicd-intro/.
• For ReadyRoll, learn more about CI/CD at https://documentation.red-gate.com/display/RR1/Continuous+Integration+and+Deployment

Where do I get these database development tools from?

You can find both SQL Server Data Tools and Redgate’s SQL Search on all Visual Studio 2017 editions. Additionally, Visual Studio 2017 Enterprise subscribers have access to Redgate SQL Prompt Core and ReadyRoll Core as part of their installation, in the Data storage and processing workload.

Which tool should I use: SSDT or ReadyRoll?  

ReadyRoll is an alternative to SSDT Database Projects that allows developers to have more control over the end database deployment script. It can be used alongside other great features in SSDT like the Table Designer and ability to View and Edit Data.

SSDT and ReadyRoll Core take two different approaches to database development. SSDT takes a state-based approach, while ReadyRoll Core takes a migrations-based approach. The short version: for example, consider this analogy for baking a cake:

• With SSDT database projects, you are given a list of ingredients and a picture of what the end cake will look like; the beginning and end state. How you get there is derived.
• With ReadyRoll Core, you are given the recipe telling you what to do each step of the way to turn the ingredients into a cake.

We are pleased to announce that SQL Server Data Tools 17.0 is officially released and supported for production use. This GA release includes support for SQL Server 2017 and SQL Server on Linux including new features such as Graph DB. It includes several features that we have consistently received requests for via MSDN forums and Connect and contains numerous fixes and improvements over the 16.x version of the tools. You no longer need to maintain 16.x and 17.0 side-by-side to build SQL Server relational databases, Azure SQL databases, Integration Services packages, Analysis Services data models, Azure Analysis Services data models, and Reporting Services reports. From all the SSDT teams, thank you for your valuable feedback and suggestions!

Additionally, for relational and Azure SQL databases SSDT 17.0 GA includes a highly requested improvement to ignore column order in upgrade plans as well as numerous other bug fixes. 

In the Business Intelligence area, SSDT 17.0 GA supports Azure Analysis Services in addition to SQL Server Analysis Services. It features a modern Get Data experience in Tabular 1400 models, including DirectQuery support (see the blog article “Introducing DirectQuery Support for Tabular 1400”) and an increasing portfolio of data sources. Other noteworthy features include object-level security to secure model metadata in addition to data, transaction-performance improvements for a more responsive developer experience, improvements to the authoring experience of detail rows expressions, and a DAX Editor to create measures and other DAX expressions more conveniently.

For Integration Services, SSDT 17.0 GA provides an authoring package with OData Source and OData Connection Manager connecting to the OData feeds of Microsoft Dynamics AX Online and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. Moreover, the project target server version supports SQL Server 2017 so you can conveniently deploy your packages on the latest version of SQL Server.

So please download SSDT 17.0 GA from https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/ssdt/download-sql-server-data-tools-ssdt and update your existing installations today! Send us your feedback and ask us questions on our forum or via Microsoft Connect.  We look forward to hearing from you.

This release also includes an update to the DacFx Nuget packages published on https://nuget.org.