Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals, which is expected to ship before the end of the year, will be the fourth role-based edition of the development software. Today, there are tool sets targeted at developers, architects and testers available as part of VS 2005.

The new edition will be integrated with Team Foundation Server, the server-based software in Visual Studio that supports integrated version control, reporting and work item tracking, said Matt Nunn, Microsoft senior product manager in the developer division.

"You have this verifiable way to track changes being made to the database, and you can now make the database professionals a true part of the team," Nunn said.

The problem for database developers and administrators today involves managing changes to database schemas, he added. The new software is designed to put database schemas in the source control tool and to allow users to make changes to it in an environment where the different versions can be managed before putting the changes into production.

In addition, the tool also includes a data generator designed to provide sets of test data that can mirror production data without including potentially sensitive information such as Social Security numbers or credit card numbers, Nunn added.