News
Microsoft To Release Visual Studio for Database Developers
Microsoft says it's hard at work on a Visual Studio edition product
targeted specifically at database developers and that it plans to ship it by
year's end.
Dubbed Visual Studio Team Edition (VSTS) for Database Professionals, the package
will enter "beta" -- otherwise known as its first Community Technology
Preview, or CTP -- in June at the company's TechEd 2006 conference in
Boston.
The Database Professionals edition is the next milestone en route to the release
of Visual Studio code-named "Orcas," according to the company.
"It's...designed to manage database changes, improve software quality
through database testing, and bring the benefits of Visual Studio Team System
and life cycle development to database professionals, such as database architects,
database developers and database administrators," said S. Somasegar, corporate
vice president of the Developer Division, on his blog.
The new edition will enable database professionals to take advantage of integrated
change-management features to streamline making changes to databases. It also
will reduce the risk of catastrophic failure related to alteration of database
schemas. The edition will also support integrated database testing, including
support for database unit tests, complex test authoring and automatic generation
of test data.
According to Microsoft, VSTS for Database Professionals will be available to
subscribers of Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite with MSDN Premium as part of their
subscription. Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Database Professionals will
also be sold separately at an estimated retail price of $5,469.
When the CTP process begins, the beta code will be available here.
About the Author
Stuart J. Johnston has covered technology, especially Microsoft, since February 1988 for InfoWorld, Computerworld, Information Week, and PC World, as well as for Enterprise Developer, XML & Web Services, and .NET magazines.