VS2010 Database Comparison Features

One of the exciting additions to VS2010 are database comparison utilities.  The IDE now supports schema and data comparison.  Having used Adept SQL and Red Gate SQL compare for years it was refreshing to see similar functionality in the IDE.

Accessing the features are simple.  From the main menu select Data. (Figure1)

 
Figure 1

Schema Compare
The schema compare features allows you to select from the current project or any database connection (figure 2).


Figure 2

While this might now have all the features provided in Adept SQL or Red Gate SQL Compare, it does provide a compelling option.

Data Compare
The data compare feature set is quite good as well. The selection process is similar to schema compare with some additional options (Figure 3).


Figure 3

The comparison window is clean and simple to use.

Conclusion
While it is not a complete replacement for third party comparisons tools many will find the feature set sufficient for there use.

Here is a link to Microsoft documentation on "Comparing Databases" from team services 2005 but provides some details;
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa833272(v=VS.80).aspx

Here is a link to a good post on the subject;
http://blog.cuce.com.au/2009/08/data-services-in-vs2010-data-schema.html