Working with data gotten a lot easier with DACPACs: Data-tier applications in SQL Server 2008 R2

A Data Application Component is an entity that integrates all data tier related objects used in authoring, deploying and managing into a single unit instead of working with them separately( introduced in SQL Server 2008 in late 2009).
Programmatically DACs belong to classes that are found in The Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Dac namespace. DACs are stored in a DacStore and managed centrally. Dacs can be authored and built using SQL Server Data-Tier Application templates in VS2010 (now in Beta 2) or using SQL Server Management Studio. This article describes creating DAC using SQL Server 2008 R2 Nov-CTP(R2 server in this article), a new feature in this version.

Data-tier applications are not supported on SQL Azure databases. This may change in the future as more funcitonality is added to SQL Azure.

Data application Component extraction and deployment are wizard driven and easy to follow. The next two figures shows the two important stages of this process.

Extraction: The next screen shot shows how data is extracted

Deployment: This one shows how it is deployed

Does it not remind you of detaching and attachning a database?

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Working with Data Application Components in SQL Server 2008 R2