Designing and Implementing Data-tier Applications

A data-tier application (DAC) is an entity that contains all of the database objects and instance objects used by an application. A DAC provides a single unit for authoring, deploying, and managing data-tier objects.

DAC Support in SQL Server 2008

Instances of the SQL Server 2008 Database Engine support all DAC operations after SP2 has been applied. You can deploy, upgrade, register, extract, and delete DACs.

SQL Server 2008 SP2 does not upgrade the SQL Server 2008 client tools to support DACs. You must use the SQL Server 2008 R2 client tools, such as SQL Server Management Studio, to perform DAC operations. For more information, see Designing and Implementing Data-tier Applications in the Books Online for SQL Server 2008 R2.