Category: VSTS DBPro

  • Top 4 Reasons Why a Shared Development Database is Evil.

    It’s pretty common.  A development team will frequently have one instance of SQL Server — filled with data from production — that all the devs use to develop and test the next version of the application.  It’s one of those things in software development that feels like “common sense”.  Of *course* you’re going to have…

  • Database Project Types in Visual Studio 2010

    I was at Microsoft in Redmond, WA this week for the 2010 MVP Summit.  While I was there, some of us got a chance to do a side discussion with Barclay Hill of the VS Database Project team.  Barclay pointed out something in Visual Studio 2010’s list of Database project that I hadn’t noticed yet. …

  • ITNAmerica / Microsoft Software + Services Case Study (plus Team Foundation Server)

    One of my clients just got featured in a Microsoft case study about Software + Services.  ITNAmerica is based in Portland, Maine and provides flexible transportation options for seniors who are no longer able to drive. The Microsoft case study features the scalability and flexibility features of ITN’s SOA-based architecture and their success with Microsoft’s…

  • A User Interface for VsDbCmd: Deploy/Import Your Database Schema Without Installing Visual Studio 2008 Database Edition

    There’s an underappreciated feature in Visual Studio 2008 Database Edition (DbPro) and that’s VsDbCmd.exe.  If you’re using DbPro to manage your database schema during development, you’re doing it with Visual Studio installed on your desktop.  When you need to deploy changes to production, you do a Database Comparison between your project and your production database…

  • My Mistake + Here’s Why I Like Team System

    Well, we all make mistakes from time to time and this weekend I made a good one. I’ve written a few posts lately on why I think small businesses need Team System. This weekend I got a comment from Ben Scheirman on my post about the cost of Team System licensing. Ben’s comment was in…

  • Small Companies Need Team System 2008: The Licensing Discussion

    A few weeks back, I wrote a post suggesting that small companies need Team System just as much – if not more – than big companies.  In the comments for that post, I got some feedback about how pricing makes it hard for small organizations to adopt Team System. This one comes from Dave: It…

  • My $0.02: Small companies need Team System (VSTS) just as much as big companies.

    As you may have noticed, the world economy has been a little under the weather lately.  Lately, I’ve been thinking about how the economy fits together with VSTS’s mission.  Specifically how, as Brian Randell says, “Team System is all about increasing the predictability of success”.  Team System has been pitched more at large- and medium-sized…

  • Team Suite 2008 Developer Machine Install

    For the last few days, I’ve been working on building student machines for the Visual Studio Team System / Team Foundation Server class that I’m teaching next week in Cambridge.  The complexity of the install reminded me of the confusion that one of my recent clients had trying to pull together all their licenses, ISO…