SSDT vs SSDT-BI

Question

What are the differences between SSDT and SSDT- Business Intelligence?

I've installed SQL Server 2017 and then proceeded to download Business Intelligence Development Studio but found out that it was replaced by SSDT/SSDT-BI (don't know the difference if there's any).

Do I need just SSDT or SSDT-BI? I can only find SSDT-BI for Visual Studio 2012 and 2013, not for VS 2017 while SSDT for VS 2017 is available.

Will this create any problems since I'm working with SQL Server 2017?

I'm a complete beginner at all this and this is only for a uni project. Please keep answers as simple as possible. Thank you very much.

Answer 1

There is only SSDT nowadays, which includes support for SQL Server Database, SSAS, SSRS, and SSIS projects. The download links are here. The current SSDT version (15.5.2 as of this writing) allows you to target SQL Azure Database, SQL Server 2017, as well as older versions so you don't need multiple versions of SSDT installed.

SSDT will install a minimal Visual Studio shell if VS is not already installed. If you already have VS installed, those project types will be added to the existing installation.

EDIT:

With Visual Studio 2019, SSDT for SQL Server database projects remains intregrated into the VS 2019 installer. Select the Data Storage and processing workload during install and choose SQL Server Data Tools. However, SSAS, SSIS, and SSRS SSDT projects are now moved to separate Visual Studio extensions. These extensions can be manged post install from within Visual Studio under Extensions-->Manage Exentsions.

Answer 2

Yeah, this got a lot of people confused. According to this link (VS2012 & VS2013 timeframe):

• SSDT is for building databases ONLY i.e. only base functionality.
• SSDT-BI is for building SSIS/SSAS/SSRS solutions

But then it looks like from VS2015 onward they merged the two together into just SSDT, so after VS2013 there is no separate SSDT-BI install. I think.