There is a brand new way of developing with databases with Visual Studio 2012: SQL Server Data Tools.
I am a user of the good old VSDBCMD. I use VSDBCMD on a daily basis to updates databases on staging and production servers. Now I fail to find documentation on how to use SSDT the same way I am using VSDBCMD.
The MSDN page How to: Prepare a Database for Deployment From a Command Prompt by Using VSDBCMD.EXE explains how to prepare a production server for deployment with VSDBCMD. There is no equivalent documentation page for this task with SSDT. Does anyone have a valuable documentation about that?
The MSDN page How to: Deploy Changes to New or Existing Databases explains how to deploy a database on a production server from compiled files using VSDBCMD. There is no equivalent documentation page for this task with SSDT. Does anyone have a valuable documentation about that?
The whole Build and Deploy Databases to a Staging or Production Environment (VSDBCMD) documentation section exists nowhere in the SSDT documentation.
It seems like there is no documentation at all concerning this new technology. Or am I not able to use a search engine? I don't know. Can someone enlighten me?
My goal is to deploy SSDT projects on production machines without installing Visual Studio.
To run the sqlpqckage.exe on a production server, you will have to install Microsoft® SQL Server® 2012 Data-Tier Application Framework The following elements must be installed .
If not installed, you will get an error like
Could not load file or assembly 'Microsoft.SqlServer.TransactSql.ScriptDom, Version=11.0.0.0
And here is the SqlPackage.exe command line reference
This video helped me get the info.