SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) has a neat feature where you can add snippets into your scripts via the right-click context menu: I’m finding it very useful indeed. The same feature exists in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) as well by the way: One thing I really wanted to be able to do was create my own snippets for SSDT and I ventured to ...

One of the nice things about doing user group presentations is that when you’re putting the presentation together you invariably learn about features that were previously unbeknown to you; so it proved as I stumbled upon SSDT’s database drift detection features while researching material for my forthcoming pre-conference seminar SSDT from the ...

In March 2012 I published SSDT - What's in a name? where I lamented the mistakes that Microsoft made in the naming of SQL Server Data Tools. …official documentation stating that SSDT includes all the stuff for building SSIS/SSAS/SSRS solutions (this is confirmed in the installer, remember) yet someone from Microsoft tells him "SSDT ...

As you may have realised from much of my blogging over the past year or so I’m an advocate of using SSDT database projects for building database solutions on SQL Server. I have been using SSDT database projects a lot in that time and have come up with a checklist of things to consider when starting a new SSDT database project and I’ll be detailing ...

When you install the database projects template of SSDT you get SQL Server Object Explorer (SSOX) installed as well. SSOX is a pane within Visual Studio and is the main enabler of the Connected Development experience that the SSDT team have attempted to provide. SSOX provides some really cool capabilities that are not in SQL Server Management ...

Yesterday I attended SQL Saturday 194 in Exeter for which many people deserve credit but especially the organisers Jonathan Allen & Annette Allen and the sponsors Fusion-IO, Confio Software, Nexus, Big Bang Data Company, Purple Frog Systems, Redgate, idera, Pluralsight, Jurys Inn Exeter & Wrox.  I gave a ...

SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) is released on a very regular cadence (note that I’m talking about the database projects part of SSDT, this is nothing to do with SSIS/SSAS/SSRS). Since the first release in March 2012 there have been releases in September 2012, November 2012, & December 2012. I personally have found it difficult to keep track of ...

A couple of weeks ago in Get to Know SQL Server 2012's SQL Server Data Tools [article published] I stated that an article that I wrote about SSDT had been published and was available for reading online at http://www.devproconnections.com/. The article has since been updated to include a 10-minute video that I recorded demonstrating some of the ...

Continuous deployment is described by Wikipedia as: Most CI systems allow the running of scripts after a build finishes. In most situations, it is possible to write a script to deploy the application to a live test server that everyone can look at. A further advance in this way of thinking is Continuous Deployment, which calls for the software ...

I have blogged previously at SSDT – What’s in a name? about the naming confusion that Microsoft have created by their inconsistent use of the term “SQL Server Data Tools” (SSDT) in SQL Server 2012. Is it a Visual Studio shell incorporating project templates for building databases, SSIS packages, SSAS cubes & SSRS reports? Or is it simply the ...