VSDBCMD - The target database schema provider could not be determined. Deployment cannot continue.

If you use Visual Studio Database Projects you may be familiar with the VSDBCMD utility to control the deployment of a database project.

Whilst testing a custom Team Foundation Server 2010 build template which included an activity to deploy a database project using the VSDBCMD, I came across the following error:

*** The target database schema provider could not be determined. Deployment cannot continue.

After looking into the error it turned out that the SQL Instance name in the connection string was incorrect. After resolving this issue the database project deployed to the SQL Instance as expected.