Recommended Development Tools

SQL Server 2005 includes a limited version of the Visual Studio development environment to create reports , analysis services applications, and so on. In addition, it allows you to create common language runtime (CLR) objects inside your database. However, it is very important to have a full version of Visual Studio 2005 so as to have all of its capabilities available for developing a small set of test projects to evaluate such things as availability and functionality.

Visual Studio allows you to use sample code obtained from many sources, including development communities, where you can discover not only CLR samples, but also management scripts and solutions to common problems. The environment has access to public sites, such as http://www.gotdotnet.com , where you can find workspacesthat is, areas arranged by interest or some specific functionality where the participants collaborate to create better solutions. The Visual Studio environment also has access to local communities where you can find specific solutions for local problems.

Another useful tool is Microsoft Office. You can use Microsoft Access to generate test sets of data, or you can use Microsoft Excel to obtain and evaluate results and create batch scripts based on pre-existing sets of data by using its string manipulation capabilities.