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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.

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