If you attended TechEd in Boston last month, you might have seen a session introducing Microsoft's new database development tool, Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals (VSDB Pro). I had the pleasure of learning about this new product from two of SQL Server Magazine's longtime authors and friends: VSDB Pro's Architect and Development Manager Gert Drapers and Program Manager Architect Richard Waymire (who is also one of this magazine's original contributing editors). Gert conceived the idea of VSDB Pro and heads the development team. Richard's role includes making sure VSDB Pro has the features that database developers and DBAs need and ensuring that the product stays on schedule. (See the Web-exclusive article, "The Power to Control Change," http://www.sqlmag.com, InstantDoc ID 50303, for more information on how VSDB Pro will affect DBAs.)
I hope the following interview conveys the enthusiasm Gert and Richard exuded as they explained how VSDB Pro aims to bridge the gap between database and application developers. VSDB Pro will also support script management (see the Web-exclusive sidebar, "Admin Scripts," http://www.sqlmag.com, InstantDoc ID 50272). VSDB Pro's database development life cycle tools mirror Visual Studio's (VS's) tools for the application development life cycle stages of build, deploy, manage changes and versions, track processes and work items, and reporting.
The What, Who, and Why
Karen: What is your new product?
Gert: It's a SKU of VS, a member of the VS Team Suite. The official name is Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals, or VSDB Pro. The code name was K2, also internally known as the Data Dude.
Karen: It had two code names?
Gert: There's a funny story here. We had an executive presentation about what we wanted to do as part of VS. We were explaining who our customer would be. VS had personas for the Developer, the Tester, the Architect, but our customer, the SQL Server person, was missing. Our vice president at the time, Eric Rudder, stuck this name to our customer: "Oh! He's the Data Dude."
Karen: What's the relationship between the Data Dude and the existing VS personas?
Gert: VS has always targeted application developers, and we've also added testers and architects. Most applications have a database, but VS never paid attention to this whole database thing. Our goal is to acknowledge that the database developer is important, that this role has not been getting the attention and tool support available to other personas.
The Data Dude project is about bridging the worlds of application development and database development. We asked how we could bring the database developer into the development life cycle, like an app developer who starts a project, designs, writes code, builds, and debugs. The developer goes through this cycle working in a team and using source control. But what does a database developer have? Query Analyzer. That's the only tool.
Our other observation was that every change a database developer makes is directly on the database. It immediately goes into effect, so the truth is in the database. Therefore, there is no change tracking, and no design-build-deploy metaphor. Because database developers have no development life cycle, it's hard for them to play in the world with other developers that do have a development life cycle. So our goal for V1 is to provide tooling for database developers, to support them with change management—specifically SQL Server schema change management.
Karen: Is a DBA a Data Dude?
Gert: Whoever maintains the schema is our audience. So VSDB Pro targets the function of managing changes in the schema. My biggest audience is Query Analyzer users.
Point-and-click administrators who only want to make mouse-click changes will not be our first audience. They will be in [SQL Server Management Studio] SSMS. If you're part of a development team or want to work in a structured process, work disconnected (like a consultant on the road), play around with the schema and try out changes, VSDB Pro is your environment.
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