For our continuous integration needs, we use a powershell script to handle deployment. A simpler approach would be to have a deployment task embedded within the build process. See the solution provided here by Jakob Ehn (a most interesting read which also dives into the '”deploying from Visual Studio” specifics) : http://geekswithblogs.net/jakob/archive/2012/04/25/deploying-ssdt-projects-with-tfs-build.aspx For our needs, though, clearly separating our build phase from our deployment phase is important. It allows us to instantly deploy old versions. Also it is more convenient for continuous integration. So we stick with the powershell script approach. With VSDB projects, that script used to call the following command (the vsdbcmd executable was locally available, along with needed libraries): vsdbcmd.
exe /a:Deploy /dd /cs:<CONNECTIONSTRING TO TARGET DB> /dsp:SQL /manifest:< PATH TO .deploymanifest FILE> To be able to do the approximately same thing with a SSDT produced file (dacpac), you would call this command on a machine which has VS2012 installed (or the SSDT installed, see here : http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh500335%28v=vs.103%29): C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\110\DAC\bin\SqlPackage.
exe /Action:Publish /SourceFile:<PATH TO Database.dacpac FILE> /Profile:<PATH TO .publish.xml FILE> And from within a powershell script : & "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\110\DAC\bin\SqlPackage.
exe" /Action:Publish /SourceFile:<PATH TO Database.dacpac FILE> /Profile:<PATH TO .publish.xml FILE> The command will consume a publish.xml file where the connection string and the deployment options are specified. You must be familiar with it if you have done some deployments from visual studio. If not, please refer to the above mentioned article by Jakob Ehn. It is also possible to pass those parameters in the command line. The complete SqlPackage.
exe syntax is detailed here : http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh550080%28v=vs.103%29.aspx
