This is a short note for anyone that may be interested in redistributing sqlpackage.exe. If this isn’t you then no need to keep reading. Ostensibly this is here for anyone that bingles for this information.

sqlpackage.exe is a command-line that ships with SQL Server Development Tools (SSDT) in SQL Server 2012 and its main purpose (amongst other things) is to deploy .dacpac files from the command-line. Its quite conceivable that one might want to install only sqlpackage.exe rather than the full SSDT suite (for example on a production server) and I myself have recently had that need. I enquired to the SSDT product team about the possibility of doing this. I said:

Back in VS DB Proj days it was possible to use VSDBCMD.exe on a machine that did not have the full VS shell install by shipping lots of pre-requisites along for the ride (details at How to: Prepare a Database for Deployment From a Command Prompt by Using VSDBCMD.EXE).

Is there a similar mechanism for using VSDBMCD.exe’s replacement, sqlpackage.exe?

here was the reply from Barclay Hill who heads up the development team:

Yes, SQLPackage.exe is the analogy of VSDBCMD.exe. You can acquire separately, in a stand-alone package, by installing DACFX.

You can get it from:

• Feature pack is here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=29065
• Web Platform Installer here: http://www.microsoft.com/web/gallery/install.aspx?appid=DACFX

You will notice it has dependencies on SQLDOM and SQLCLRTYPES.  WebPI will install these for you, but it is al carte on the feature pack.

So, now you know. I didn’t enquire about licensing of DACFX but given SSDT is free I am going to assume that the same applies to DACFX too.

@Jamiet