Running Side by Side

SQL Server Integration Services team member Matt Masson posted two excellent posts (including one dedicated to the new "SuperDump" feature we've all been waiting for) on his blog yesterday related to new features and functionality in SSIS in SQL Server 2008. You should definitely check out the details (I won't try to reproduce them here) but there is one bit of news that put a huge smile on my face:

"The next Katmai CTP will introduce Visual Studio 2008 as our Business Intelligence Design Studio. This doesn't change much functionally, but does allow for side by side installations of BIDS - meaning you can edit Yukon packages (with Visual Studio 2005) and Katmai packages (with Visual Studio 2008) on the same machine."

If you're an early adopter who doesn't like virtual machines (call me old fashioned) and who doesn't like lugging around that second laptop all the time (call me wimpy) this is a a big step in the right direction. Today (with CTP5) you cannot run SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008 on the same computer and work with BI projects in Visual Studio for both 2005 and 2008. The database engine components run side by side just fine, but we BI people have been somewhat out of luck to date. There's no official word on just when CTP6 will be publicly available, but now we have something extra to look forward to...