Cintreuk

Data-tier application in SQL Server defines the schema and objects that are required to support an application.It is really very simple.

There are two ways you can implement a DAC:

• Using Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 with a SQL Server Data-tier application project type
• Using the extraction utility in SQL Servers Extract Data-tier wizard.

In Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 Community there are no templates to do this although you can import one, if it exists in the community samples.

Here is how you extract using the SQL Server Management Studio in SQL Server 2012.

Connect to SQL Server on your computer. Here is the Object Explorer of a named instance of SQL Server 2012.

Dac_01

We now create a DAC using the Northwind database.
Right click Northwind to open the menu and the sub-menu as shown.


Dac_02

Click on Extract Data-Tier Application... to display the Introduction screen of the Wizard.

Dac_03

The above screen pretty well describes the actions we take. It has the three steps:

• Set the DAC properties

• Review object dependency and validation results

• Build the DAC Package

Click Next to display the Set Properties page of the wizard. when you choose the databse the application name gets the database name by default and if it iss the first time the version is also set.


Dac_04

It appears that I have already created a file with that name and I will extract another with a different name NrthWnd.

Dac_05

Click Next. Displays the validation and summary page of the wizard.

Dac_07

Click Next. after a bit of creating and saving animation the process either succeeds or fails.

Dac_08

Click finish (after you get to see the Success of the operationb)  and the DAC  page is saved to the location indicated.

Dac_09

DAC files can be unpacked with programs shown.

 Dac_10

SQL Server 2016 CTP 2.3 is available since September 2, 2015. Several features have been enhanced. Looks like integration of R Language with SQL Server 2016 is built-in.


The following are the stated enhancements in this preview:

• Row Level Security support for in-memory OLTP tables
• A core engine scalability improvement, dynamically partitioning thread safe memory objects by NUMA or CPU, which enables higher scalability
• In-memory data warehouse (column store) performance optimizations
• Many-to-many derived hierarchies in Master Data Services
• Several performance improvements to SQL Server Analysis Services, including DAX query performance
• Enhancements to Reporting Services, including an updated Report Builder with a modern theme and report rendering for modern browsers

These are additional enhancements besides the above:
Improvements to the SQL Server Integration Service, Query Execution, and DBCC CHECKDB.

Technical Datasheet is  here (download PDF).

Download the evaluation edition here.