The biggest problem I see with newer versions and ends up generating many doubts throughout the technical community, is that you need to install Visual Studio Community Edition to use SSDT, if you don't have a Visual Studio license.

If we analyze the SSDT download page, we can see that versions 20 (preview) already exist for download, as components of Visual Studio, while versions 2017 and earlier were standalone installers that already installed a simplified copy of Visual Studio, known as Visual Studio Shell ( SSDT 2014 to 2017) or BIDS (SSDT 2005 to 2012). In summary, SSDT is a free IDE for BI and database analysts to work with database projects (SQL Database Projects / SQLCLR), Integration Service projects (SSIS), Analysis Services (SSAS) and Reporting Services (SSRS), so it is essential for anyone working in the data field with Microsoft data tools. It can work with a database project or directly with a connected or external database instance.

You can use SSDT's Transact-SQL design capabilities to compile, debug, maintain, and refactor databases. Career, Courses and Certifications (35)Īccording to the official Microsoft documentation, SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) transforms database development by introducing a ubiquitous declarative model that spans all phases of database development in Visual Studio.

Ssdt 2017