First Look: Visual Studio Team System for Database Professionals

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First Look: Visual Studio Team System for Database Professionals

I sat in on the First Look for Team System's Database Professional Role. This is a very cool addition to the Team Suite and I think it is just another reason why this new product is going to revolutionize the industry. Most of the concepts as to why this is needed are not new. Many of us already know that placing your database objects under source control is a good idea. The problem was that this was not an easy sell before because it was difficult to manage large databases in this manner. Let's dive in and see what VSTS for DB Pros offers.

VSTS for DB Pros introduces the concept of the virtual Sandbox for databases. You can apply changes like the creation of tables, constraints, etc. without affect an actual database on a server. Another new feature is the Data Generation Plan. This allows you to not only create realistic test data based on your schema, but also allow you to use Cardinality to create ratios of test data between tables in your schema. You can also set a percentage of test data to be invalid data so you can test how it affects your system. The cool thing about this is you don't have to dump your production data down to get good data for your tests.

VSTS for DB Pros allows you to create data generators for all of the SQL Data Types as well as Regular Expressions and Data Bound generators. If you have a test database that you already use, the Data Bound generator can read from that as the source of your test data or you could read the results of previous tests. Another cool thing is that you can write custom Data Generators and plug them in.

VSTS for DB Pros also include tools that allow for unit testing of databases. You can write your tests in TSQL, C# or VB. C# and VB allow for more advanced testing. You can also create manual tests for things that must be verified by a person.