Search results matching tags 'sql server' and 'Visual Studio'

Connected development in SSDT versus SSMS

jamiet — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 16:28:00 GMT

When you install the database projects template of SSDT you get SQL Server Object Explorer (SSOX) installed as well. SSOX is a pane within Visual Studio and is the main enabler of the Connected Development experience that the SSDT team have attempted to provide.

SSOX provides some really cool capabilities that are not in SQL Server Management Studio (I hope to blog about them in the near future). In theory these capabilities make it possible for a database developer to spend all their time in SSDT (i.e. Visual Studio) thus making SSMS a pureplay DBA tool (this does of course depend on your definition of both a database developer and a DBA, but I’m not getting into that debate here).

With that in mind I have spent a few days trying to work without SSMS, preferring to live wholly inside Visual Studio instead. By and large I was able to do everything I needed to do from within Visual Studio however there were a few nuances about the experience that kept pushing me back to SSMS, I detail those nuances below.

Server groups

SSOX combines the functions of SSMS’s Object Explorer and Registered Servers pane. I don’t mind either way of working but it does mean that there is no ability to group servers in SSOX like you can in the Registered Servers pane

F6

In SSMS I regularly use the F6 keyboard shortcut to jump between the query, results & messages panes of a query window. No such keyboard shortcut exists in SSDT and they’ve already canned my request on Connect to get this fixed (even though it laughably has status “closed as fixed”).

UPDATE: See the comments below where Brett Gerhardi informed me of a different keyboard shortcut that does the same thing as F6. Actually its not quite the same, if you have multiple resultsets in your results pane then the behaviour is slightly different to F6 in SSMS - but that's not an issue you'll hot frequently.

Change Connection

The context menu in SSMS provides the ability to change a connection as well as connect and disconnect:

SSDT doesn’t have change connection and believe me, you don’t know how much you use a feature until its not there:

There’s also no hotkey to jump to “Connection” on the context menu like there is in SSMS (“C”) and I find that annoying too.

Those were the main annoyances that forced me back to SSMS. The lack of F6 was a major bugbear for me as I am a big keyboard shortcut junkie. If such things don’t bother you then you may be able to live in Visual Studio quite happily. If you have any similar experiences to share I’d be keen to read them.

@Jamiet

DAX editor for SQL Server

manowar — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 06:58:10 GMT

One of the major criticism to DAX is the lack of a decent editor and more in general of a dedicated IDE, like the one we have for T-SQL or MDX.

Well, this is no more true. On Codeplex a very interesting an promising Visual Studio 2010 extension has been released by the beginning of November 2011:

http://daxeditor.codeplex.com/

Intellisense, Syntax Highlighting and all the typical features offered by Visual Studio are available also for DAX.

Right now you have to download the source code and compile it, and that’s it!

Confirmed: Juneau is in the next version of Visual Studio

jamiet — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 21:32:00 GMT

Its no great secret that Juneau, a collection of features in the forthcoming SQL Server codenamed Denali, will be in the next version of Visual Studio but its nice to have it confirmed all the same. I have installed the first publicly available drop of that next version (known as Visual Studio 11 Developer Preview, download from here) that was released at last week's BUILD event and sure enough the Juneau stuff is right there. Here’s some screenshots:

Note the presence of Juneau in the About dialog:

Here’s the new Juneau table designer:

OK, so this isn’t really news (unless you didn’t already know about it) however what is of interest is that this is the Express Edition of Visual Studio. This bodes well for full release – Juneau needs to be available to as many folks as possible which means not making it exclusive to the Ultimate Edition.

@jamiet

Some thoughts on Visual Studio database references and how they should be used for SQL Server BI

jamiet — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 12:53:00 GMT

Over the past few weeks I have been making heavy use of the Database tools in Visual Studio 2010 (formerly known as datadude, DBPro, VSTS for Database Professionals or one of a plethora of other names that it has gone by over the past few years) and one of the features that has most impressed me has been database references.

Database references allow you to have stored procedures in your database project that refer to objects (tables, views, stored procedures etc…) that exist in other database projects and hence when you build your database project it is able to resolve those references. Gert Drapers has a useful introduction to them at his blog post Database References; in his words database references allow you to:

represent and resolve 3 and/or 4-part name usage inside a database project. Database references are conceptually the same as assembly references inside a C# or VB.NET projects; they allow you to reference objects from your database project that live inside another namespace (database).

It occurred to me that similar functionality would be incredibly useful for SQL Server Integration Services(SSIS), Analysis Services (SSAS) & Reporting Services (SSRS) projects. After all reports, packages and data source views are rife with references to database objects – why shouldn’t we be able to have design-time dependency checking in our BI projects the same way that database and .Net developers do?

Here are some examples of ways in which this would be useful:

If a SSRS report pulls data from a view, I firstly want to know (at design-time) that that view exists. Secondly, if the view definition changes I want to know that my report will still work.
Similarly for a SSAS cube, if a view referenced in the DSV changes or disappears I want my SSAS project build to fail or succeed accordingly
Similarly for a SSIS Execute SQL Task, if it executes a stored procedure I want to know that the named parameters that I am using actually exist in the stored procedure.

To this end I have submitted three identical suggestions to Connect, one each for SSIS, SSAS & SSRS:

[SSAS] Declare database object dependencies

[SSRS] Declare database object dependencies

[SSIS] Declare database object dependencies

I have said before in my blog post The SQL developer gap that we database and BI developers deserve as much love from Microsoft as our .Net counterparts do and I’m of the opinion that providing design-time dependency checking across the full gamut of BI projects would be a huge step in the right direction. The holy grail is an object dependency graph from database tables all the way up through database views, database functions, stored procedures, DAL, ORM layer & business logic layer all the way through to presentation – I don’t know how long it will take but we will get there one day I am sure, hopefully sooner rather than later!

@JamieT

UPDATE: This feature (i.e. the ability to define dependencies on database objects at build time) is coming to the Entity Framework as confirmed in this Connect submission: http://bit.ly/igmEiS. Let's hope the same comes to SSIS/SSAS/SSRS soon.

SSIS 2005 on Windows 7

andyleonard — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 11:00:00 GMT

Introduction

I recently upgraded from Vista Ultimate (x64) to Windows 7 Ultimate (x64). So far I really like Windows 7, but I'm still in the honeymoon phase. I ran into an issue creating new packages using SSIS 2005 and found a solution I thought I'd share.

The Error

Unfortunately for both of us, I did not capture a screenshot of the error. I can tell you it occurred when I created a new SSIS project or attempted to add a package to an SSIS project. The text of the message read something like:

"Cannot create package" and " failed due to the following error:"

Now I know on the surface the text above is utterly meaningless. My fervent hope and desire is that search engines will catalog this page so people encountering the same error can find it when searching. Because frankly, I didn't find anything online that helped me figure this one out - it was all trial and error and, in the end, dumb luck that worked for me.

If you encounter this error, please capture a screenshot and/or the text of the error message and leave a comment to this post. I promise I will contact you and update this post so it's more accurate. Since I fixed it, I've been unable to reproduce the error.

The Solution

Run As Administrator. Simple, eh? Like searching for my car keys, the solution was in the last place I looked.

To set this permission on the Business Intelligence Development Studio application, click the Windows button and navigate to the All Programs\SQL Server 2005 folder. Right-click the Business Intelligence Development Studio object and click Properties:

Once Properties display, click the Advanced button on the Shortcut tab:

When the Advanced Properties dialog displays, check the "Run as administrator" checkbox (NOTE: This assumes you are a member of the local Administrators group on your workstation):

Click the OK button to close the Advanced Properties dialog. You will be prompted to confirm these changes. If you are a local administrator on your workstation, you can click the Continue button and move on. If not, you will need a member of the local Administrators group to login to your workstation and validate this change:

Click OK to save the changes to Properties.

After I made this change to my shortcut, I was able to create SQL Server 2005 Integration Services packages on my Windows 7 machine.

:{> Andy

Microsoft Announces SQL Server Data Services (SSDS)!

andyleonard — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 19:08:00 GMT

Cool things are coming out of Mix08!

There's even something there for we database people: SQL Server Data Services.

From Neil Hutson's blog:

SSDS you can think of as a structured data store in the cloud(building block service), which is accessed using Internet protocols using a basic data manipulation language. SSDS is for developers and businesses that need scalable, easily programmable, and cost-effective data storage with robust database query capabilities. Pretty cool.

:{> Andy

DreamSpark: Free Software for Students

andyleonard — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 16:02:00 GMT

This is cool! Microsoft is giving away software - including SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition, Windows 2003 Standard Edition, and Visual Studio 2005 and 2008 Professional Editions - to college students.

It's called DreamSpark and it puts professional software tools in the hands of students interested in learning more about designing and developing solutions.

From the website:

Now, for the first time, Microsoft is giving its valuable software developer and design tools directly to students worldwide at no charge! This site enables students like you to download professional-level Microsoft developer and design tools to unlock your creative potential and set you on the path to academic and career success, by supporting and advancing your learning and skills through technical design, technology, math, science and engineering activities.

Great idea!

:{> Andy