This article was written based on a presentation given by Eric Carlson.

VS Team System 2008 Database Edition GDR is a component of the Visual Studio Team System suite of tools. It was formerly known as “DB Pro”. As the General Distribution Release, it is a post-service pack 1 release. It incorporates several of the features slated for Visual Studio 2010 “Rosario”. It also has SQL Server 2008 support.

Some of the key features of this Team System release are listed below:

1. T-SQL Editor
   The T-SQL Editor support ad hoc queries within Visual Studio without having to rely on SQL Management Studio (finally!). Also like Management Studio, Team System 2008 Database Edition supports client statistics, results as text and results as file. Unfortunately there is no Intellisense for SQL Server 2008 built in.
2. Database Projects
   This tool supports off-line schema development in a file format denoted by *.dbschema files. Being able to develop against non-live files is a huge advantage for shared database development. Version control is also supported to capture schema changes as they are developed. Within the Database Projects, compile-time schema validation and static code analysis are presented as warnings. Refactoring and deployment is also made easier by the Database Project tools.
3. Server Projects
   Server Projects model both shared and server-level objects. This enables a team to define a standard configuration for their SQL servers and reference it within their Database Projects.


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