Currently we are using EF 4.1 with a Model First Approach that we then use the Entity Designer Database Generation Power Pack to Sync the model to a Visual Studio 2010 Database Project. From there we use the deploy feature of the database project to upgrade the actual databases. This works fine. I had to write a little clean script to clean out extreanous comments in the database project but that is all solved.
The issue is SQL Server 2012. I did a test whereby I installed Sql Server 2012 and our VS 2010 database project didn’t want to deploy to it. It said that Sql Server 2012 is not a supported target version. Okay so that just means I need to install SSDT and convert the project to a Sql Database Project. The issue here is that there isn’t a tool to Sync the Entity Model to a SSDT project. The Entity Designer Database Generation Power Pack was only built for VS 2010 Database Projects not SSDT Database Projects.
This is preventing us from upgrading to SQL Server 2012 and SSDT projects.
I really like the database projects because they allow us to source control our database schema. And we can add in extra stuff like reporting stored procedures and the like to it.
I’ve looked at Code First Migrations but seems less feature rich than an SSDT project. And I’m not 100% sure that you can use that migration with the edmx designer for Model First implementation.
So what are we to do?
Eric
Indeed, syncing from edmx to an SSDT Database Project isn’t possible. Have you considered building a database from edmx and using SSDT’s schema compare tool to sync it to the Database Project?
The only difference from your previous process is building this intermediary database.