I am trying to make ARX connect to a SQL Server database with hostname\instance and Windows auth. ARX keeps reporting "Unknown server host name". I need input for what ARX expects in "Server" when there is also an instance name.
The reason for looking at ARX, is because I am searching for a tool, which is capable of anonymizing a SQL Server database.
Connect to a SQL Server database, import the data and pattern, anonymize the data, overwrite the data in the database with the anonymized data.
Author of ARX here. Some feedback:
ARX is relased in two forms: a Java programming library as well
as a GUI. There is more flexibility when using the programming
library than with the GUI. You will be able to (in theory)
import the data from a SQL Server DBMS, but you will not be able to
write data back to the DBMS. This functionality is easy to implement using the library,
however.
We have been struggling with DBMS connection problems for quite some time. The reason is that we don't have that many different types of DBMSs around to be able to test wide range of possible connection settings. For example, I don't have SQL Server installation around, so I cannot investigate your problem.
That said, please report this issue on our GitHub issue tracker (https://github.com/arx-deidentifier/arx/issues). If you are able to run ARX from source, we would be happy to help to debug your problem. An issue requesting an export feature to DBMSs has already been created (https://github.com/arx-deidentifier/arx/issues/332). If you want, you can upvote it by commenting.
Related
I am completely ignorant in relation to databases and servers etc. Please bear with me.
I am trying to install a program called RealProspect 2009 which allows both local and remote sql database installation. Both types are done using the program installation .exe.
I have an azure account on which I have set up a server, and a database. During the program installation I am asked to provide the SQL server address, SQL server name, SQL username and SQL password. Using the information provided in the Azure online tools, I input all of this information into the fields and the program commences installing the database on the remote location. If I use incorrect information in these fields the installation returns an error and tells me it cannot log in, or the IP is not allowed etc., so I know it's actually attempting to connect and verifying the connection credentials.
When I use the correct server and login information the program proceeds. It spends several minutes "Creating the Tables". When it finishes doing that it attempts to begin "Installing Default Data (Categories)". At this point the program stops and I get the error in the subject line of this post "Invalid Object name 'Categories' "
I don't know enough to tell you what I don't know about this process.
I just signed up for Azure specifically because hosting the database with Azure is like $5-10 per month and I want myself and several other participants to be able to use the software with a common database. I created the server and database using the gui "tools/how to" from within the online Azure portal and I have never written a script, or accessed the server/database using anything other than the online GUI.
Thank you in advance for any help you may be able to provide. I hope i'm not too much of a speed bump to your day.
P.S. - For what it's worth you can download a free trial of the software from realinvestorsoftware.com and see if you could install it on a remote server. Maybe you can better see what I see and tell me how to do it on my own?
SQL Azure is VERY similar to SQL Server but there are a few features that SQL Azure doesn't support. That said, I'd be surprised if the app's installer is using any of the features that are unsupported by SQL Azure. My guess is that there's a bug in their installation scripts that might fail on more modern versions of SQL Server (note, their app installs on SQL Express 2005 which is no longer in mainstream support).
Just a couple of other thoughts for you: You get keys to install the app on two machines but:
"If you would like to install on more than two computers, then after you order your copy of RealProspect you can login to your customer account on this website and order additional activation keys for only $97 each."
Because you're going to be paying several hundred dollars anyway, and because (you yourself admit) you're not a database expert, it may be less cost, stress and hard-work to use their $27 per month database hosting service. That way you can concentrate on building your business while they take care of the technology.
[Update: 3/27/2013 # 23:05]
Another option Chris presented was to install the app and database locally and then migrate the database to Azure.
While this is potentially feasible, it requires some finesse to execute.
Microsoft provides a DB migration guide presenting several (pretty manual) options.
You might also want to read this thread which discusses how to migrate your DB via a DACPack.
Another option is to download and use the SQL Azure Migration Wizard which should do most of the heavy-lifting for you and make your DB migration simpler.
However, note that it is possible that the DB the app uses may use features of SQL Server that are not supported on SQL Azure. Hopefully this isn't the case, but be aware that this may be an issue.
Good luck :)
Chris,
I think SQL Database Migration Wizard v3.9.10 & v4.0.13 will solve your problem, I have used this tool several time to migrate db from local machine to sql azure, the most beauty of this tool it also highlights the error or sql which couldn't be migrated to Azure, so we can easily find alternate syntax of such sql queries
My question is this: Are there alternatives to ODBC that would allow us to connect our SQL Server to MS Access?
Here's the situation: My company works with a proprietary, SQL database (ProVenue) that up and decided to "no longer support ODBC" to MS Access, our front-end tool, without telling us.
We are currently migrating away from ProVenue, but in the meantime , we're stuck with a vendor, which "no longer supports" our ODBC connection(s). The vendor also has no incentive to help since we're leaving in several months.
I've devised a workaround where I manually export the ProVenue tables (ASCII), proof (yes, the export utiliy pulls unreliably), convert and upload on a daily basis into Access. That said, it is unreasonably time consuming given the number of tables. This work-around could be a full-time job.
Do you know of any alternatives?
Do NOT consider using ADP. It has been dropped from Access 2013 and hence is a technology with no future.
From what you're saying, you don't "own" your own MSSQL database - you're simply connecting to an instance that the provider manages, correct? I would guess that they've disabled ODBC connections to MSSQL because they don't like the load placed on their servers and/or that they've decided they want to change some underlying structures and don't want to have to cope with anybody whining about those changes.
That said, do they allow direct MSSQL connections? Via SQL Management Studio, for example? If so, you should be able to define an export & import process which is less buggy than theirs, and simply re-point your Access database to the local copy of data. True, this would still require some (possibly automated) import process, so you'd be out of synch with the server, but it'd give you the solution.
You might try connecting an .adp file to the server, to see if they'll still let you access things in that manner. That would possibly require significant modifications to your Access solution, but would also be a bit easier on their servers than linked tables via ODBC.
You could have a look at Access Data Projects (ADP) which are tied directly to one SQL Server database. I don't think they use ODBC at all, but they have their own limitations, and of course, aren't available in older Access versions.
I'm looking for the best approach (or a couple of good ones to choose from) for extracting from a Progress database (v10.2b). The eventual target will be SQL Server (v2008). I say "eventual target", because I don't necessarily have to connect directly to Progress from within SQL Server, i.e. I'm not averse to extracting from Progress to a text file, and then importing that into SQL Server.
My research on approaches came up with scenarios that don't match mine;
Migrating an entire Progress DB to SQL Server
Exporting entire tables from Progress to SQL Server
Using Progress-specific tools, something to which I do not have access
I am able to connect to Progress using ODBC, and have written some queries from within Visual Studio (v2010). I've also done a bit of custom programming against the Progress database, building a simple web interface to prove out a few things.
So, my requirement is to use ODBC, and build a routine that runs a specific query on a daily basis daily. The results of this query will then be imported into a SQL Server database. Thanks in advance for your help.
Update
After some additional research, I did find that a Linked Server is what I'm looking for. Some notes for others working with SQL Server Express;
If it's SQL Server Express that you are working with, you may not see a program on your desktop or in the Start Menu for DTS. I found DTSWizard.exe nested in my SQL Server Program Files (for me, C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\100\DTS\Binn), and was able to simply create a shortcut.
Also, because I'm using the SQL Express version of SQL Server, I wasn't able to save the Package I'd created. So, after creating the Package and running it once, I simply re-ran the package, and saved off my SQL for use in teh future.
Bit of a late answer, but in case anyone else was looking to do this...
You can use linked server, but you will find that the performance won't be as good as directly connecting via the ODBC drivers, also the translation of the data types may mean that you cannot access some tables. The linked server might be handy though for exploring the data.
If you use SSIS with the ODBC drivers (you will have to use ADO.NET data sources) then this will perform the most efficiently, and as well you should get more accurate data types (remember that the data types within progress can change dynamically).
If you have to extract a lot of tables, I would look at BIML to help you achieve this. BIML (Business Intelligence Markup Language) can help you create dynamically many SSIS packages on the fly which can be called from a master package. This master package can then be scheduled or run ad-hoc and so can any of the child packages as needed.
Can you connect to the Progress DB using OLE? If so, you could use SQL Server Linked Server to bypass the need for extracting to a file which would then be loaded into SQL Server. Alternately, you could extract to Excel and then import from Excel to SQL Server.
I've looked around and can't seem to find anything that answers this specific question.
What is the simplest way to move data from an MS SQL Server 2005 DB to a Postgres install (8.x)?
I've looked into several utilities like "Full Convert Enterprise", etc, and they all fail for one reason or another, ranging from strange errors that make it blow up to inserting nulls rather than actual data (wth?).
I'm looking at a DB with all table except for a single view, no stored procs, functions, etc.
At this point I'm about to write a small utility to do it for me, I just can't believe that's necessary. Surely there's something somewhere that can do this? I'm not even too worried about cost, although free is preferable :)
I don't know why nobody has mentioned the simplest and easiest way using robust MS SQL Server Management Studio.
Simply you just need to use the built-in SSIS Import/export feature. You can follow these steps:
Firstly, you need to install the PostgreSQL ODBC Driver for Windows. It's very important to install the correct version in terms of CPU arch (x86/x64).
Inside Management Studio, Right click on your database: Tasks -> Export Data
Choose SQL Server Native Client as the data source.
Choose .Net Framework Data Provider for ODBC as the destination driver.
Set the Connection String to your database in the following form:
Driver={PostgreSQL ODBC Driver(UNICODE)};Server=;Port=;Database=;UID=;PWD=
In the next page, you just need to select which tables you want to export. SQL Server will generate a default mapping and you are free to edit it. Probably you`ll encounter some Type Mismatch problems which take some time to solve. For example, if you have a boolean column in SQL Server you should export it as int4.
Microsoft Docs hosts a detailed description of connecting to PostgreSQL through ODBC.
PS: if you want to see your installed ODBC Driver, you need to check it via ODBC Data Source Administrator.
Take a look at the Software Catalogue. Under Administration/development tools I see DBConvert for MS SQL & PostgreSQL. Probably there are other similar tools listed.
You can use the MS DTS functionality (renamed to SSIS in the latest version I think). One issue with the DTS is that I've been unable to make it do a commit after each row when loading the data into pg. Which is fine if you only have a couple of 100k rows or so, but it's really very slow.
I usually end up writing a small script that dumps the data out of SQLServer in CSV format, and then use COPY WITH CSV on the PostgreSQL side.
Both those only take care of the data though. Taking care of the schema is a bit harder, since datatypes don't necessarily map straight over. But it can easily be scripted together with a static load of the schema. If the schema is simple (just varchar/int datatypes for example), that part can also easily be scripted off the data in INFORMATION_SCHEMA.
Well there are .NET bindings for MS SQL Server 2005 (obviously) and also for PostgreSQL. So it would only take a few lines of code to code up a program that could transfer data safely from one to the other. The view would probably have to be done manually as Postgres doesn't use the same language for views as SQL Server.
This answer is to help summarize current connection string because someone may overlooked the comment.
Current version of ODBC connection string is:
For 32-bit system
Driver={PostgreSQL UNICODE};Server=192.168.1.xxx;Port=5432;Database=yourDBname;Uid=postgres;Pwd=admin;
For 64-bit system
Driver={PostgreSQL UNICODE(x64)};Server=192.168.1.xxx;Port=5432;Database=yourDBname;Uid=postgres;Pwd=admin;
You can check the driver name by typing ODBC in windows search.
And open ODBC Data Source Administrator
This should be simple. I'm trying to import data from Access into SQL Server. I don't have direct access to the SQL Server database - it's on GoDaddy and they only allow web access. So I can't use the Management Studio tools, or other third-party Access upsizing programs that require remote access to the database.
I wrote a query on the Access database and I'm trying to loop through and insert each record into the corresponding SQL Server table. But it keeps erroring out. I'm fairly certain it's because of the HTML and God knows what other weird characters are in one of the Access text fields. I tried using CFQUERYPARAM but that doesn't seem to help either.
Any ideas would be helpful. Thanks.
Try using the GoDaddy SQL backup/restore tool to get a local copy of the database. At that point, use the SQL Server DTS tool to import the data. It's an easy to use, drag-and-drop graphical interface.
What error(s) get(s) thrown? What odd characters are you using? Are you referring to HTML markup, or extended (eg UTF-8) characters?
If possible, turn on Robust Error Reporting.
If the problem is the page timing out, you can either increase the timeout using the Admin, using the cfsetting tag, or rewrite your script to run a certain number of lines, and then forward to itself at the next start point.
You should be able to execute saved DTS packages in MS SQL Server from the application server's command line. Since this is the case, you can use <cfexecute> to issue a request to DTSRUNNUI.EXE. (See example) This is of course assuming you are on a server where the command is available.
It's never advisable to loop through records when a SQL Update can be used.
It's not clear from your question what database interface layer you are using, but it is possible with the right interfaces to insert data from a source outside a database if the interface being used supports both types of databases. This can be done in the FROM clause of your SQL statement by specifying not just the table name, but the connect string for the database. Assuming that your web host has ODBC drivers for Jet data (you're not actually using Access, which is the app development part -- you're only using the Jet database engine), the connect string should be sufficient.
EDIT: If you use the Jet database engine to do this, you should be able to specify the source table something like this (where tblSQLServer is a table in your Jet MDB that is linked via ODBC to your SQL Server):
INSERT INTO tblSQLServer (ID, OtherField )
SELECT ID, OtherField
FROM [c:\MyDBs\Access.mdb].tblSQLServer
The key point is that you are leveraging the Jet db engine here to do all the heavy lifting for you.