I made a custom application that is running from several years and is full of company data.
Now I need to replicate the application for another customer, so I set up a new server then i cloned the databases and empty all the tables.
Then I made a database and file shrink.
On the SQL Server side, the databases looks empty but if I run a grep search on the database files .mdf and .log I still can find recurrence of the previous company name also in system databases.
How do I really clean a SQL Server database?
Don't use backup/restore to clone a database for distribution to different clients. These commands copy data at the physical page/extent level, which may contain artifacts of deleted data, dropped objects, etc.
The best practice for this need is to create a new database with schema and system data from scratch using T-SQL scripts (ideally source controlled). If you don't already have these scripts, T-SQL scripts for schema/data can be generated from an existing database using the SMO API via .NET code or PowerShell. Here's the first answer I found with a search that uses the Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.SMO.Scripter class. Note you can include scripts data too (insert statements) by specifying the ScriptData scripting option for desired tables.
Related
every once in a while I need to move a database from one server (QA) to another (production )
until now I used to perform backup on one server copy to the other server and then restore it...
is there a way to do it more efficiently?
maybe an automated job?
mirror? replication?
I'm searching for one-two clicks solution..
tnx.
I already made an automated script that does all of the following:
1)backup.
2)zip.
3)copy.
4)unzip.
5)restore.
Could you possible create an SSIS package (using the Transfer Database Task+ Transfer SQL Server Objects) that you can execute when you need it? You could create a 'template' package and use it for further use with just changing the connections.
See this blog post for some more details:
https://www.mssqltips.com/sqlservertip/2064/transfer-database-task-and-transfer-sql-server-objects-task-in-ssis/
From the link above:
Transfer Database Task: The Transfer Database Task is used to move a database to another SQL Server instance or create a copy on the same
instance (with different database name). This task works in two modes
[...]:
Offline : In this mode, the source database is detached from the source server after putting it in single user mode, copies of the mdf,
ndf and ldf files are moved to specified network location [...]
Online : In this mode, the task uses SMO to transfer the database objects to the destination server. In this mode, the database is
online during the copy and move operation, but it will take longer as
it has to copy each object from the database individually [...].
Transfer SQL Server Objects Task The Transfer SQL Sever Objects task is used to transfer one or more SQL Server objects to a different
database, either on the same or another SQL Server instance. This
allows you to select different types of objects you want to transfer.
You can select tables, views, stored procedures, user defined
functions etc. [...]
Not sure what it would take to make this package transferable among the different databases you may need to copy, but maybe it's worth exploring.
Good luck! :)
I have a requirement that a user can have multiple environments to make experiments and test how good their modifications are; after the users are satisfied with the modifications they've done to the data in the working environment, these modifications can be (partially or completely) copied to another environment; these environments can be created as empty or as copies of other environments; right now we are using SQL Azure and our current (not implemented) approach is creating each environment as a different SQL schema in the same database using the statement
CREATE SCHEMA
till now in POCs this is working really good for us. But what i don't like of this approach is that creating a new schema involves executing several scripts to create the tables and the SPs in the new schema, so as we create or update the default schema objects, we also need to update the scripts that create the schema, also that when the schema is created we need to bulk copy the data from the original schema using another script, so considering the size of the client's data this process sometimes it cannot be not as fast as I would like, and also maintaining the SQL code to create environments is not that good for the team.
so my question is, is there any way to duplicate an entire dbo schema with a different name using T-SQL Statements?, i know this can be done manually using SQL Server Management Studio and the generate scripts option, but this must happen automatically because the users can create a new environment at any time, i already checked the documentation for
ALTER SCHEMA TargetSchema
TRANSFER SourceSchema.TableName;
but this just changes the database object schema, it does not create an actual copy of the object.
EDIT:
I am not trying to create different databases for dev, qa and production, I already have them; what I want to achieve is create a web app with multiple environments, each environment is a sandbox for the final user to make experiments, imagine it is like creating a draft before making this data available for the general public, so when the users are satisfied with the modifications they can move this data to the public environment and then when it is moved, it is available for others to see it
You can use the CREATE DATABASE ... AS COPY OF transact-sql statement to create copies of your Production database that can be used as QA, testing and development databases.
CREATE DATABASE db_copy
AS COPY OF ozabzw7545.db_original ( SERVICE_OBJECTIVE = 'P2') ;
Here ozabzw7545 is the name of Azure SQL Database server.
The following is the full syntax + additional information that is specific to Azure SQL database: CREATE DATABASE (Azure SQL Database)
Additional Information for Copy an Azure SQL database
You also can use PowerShell:
New-AzureRmSqlDatabaseCopy -ResourceGroupName "myResourceGroup" `
-ServerName $sourceserver `
-DatabaseName "MySampleDatabase" `
-CopyResourceGroupName "myResourceGroup" `
-CopyServerName $targetserver `
-CopyDatabaseName "CopyOfMySampleDatabase"
I have a database in SQL Server 2008 (not R2)
A third party has the job of replacing the database regularly by restoring the data in the live environment from a .bak file made in the development environment. This leads to the destruction of any user generated data in that database. I am restricted in the live environment and cannot have two databases there.
One solution I am thinking about is to write a stored procedure that could save somehow the user generated data to some kind of local file and then once the development .bak is restored a second stored procedure could write this data back from the local file.
I'm familiar with using generate scripts that will generate a .sql file so maybe something similar to this, but it needs to be generated from a sql query that contains only the user generated data (these are specific rows of certain tables that are joined together - not the best design but it's what I have to work with).
Is it possible to generate a SQL script from a SQL query? Or is there some other kind of local file storage I could use. Something like a CSV file would be ok but I'm not aware of an easy way to automate restoring this. It will need to be restored with some very specific sql queries.
I am relativley new to MS SQL server. I need to create a test database from exisitng test data base with same schema and get the data from production and fill the newly created empty database. For this I was using generate scripts in SSMS. But now I need to do it on regular basis in a job. Please guide me how I can create empty databases automatically at a point of time.
You will have a very hard time automating the generate scripts wizard. I would suggest using something like Red-Gate's SQL Compare (or any alternative that supports command-line). You can create a new, empty database, then script a compare/deploy using the command line from SQL Server Agent.
Another, more icky alternative, is to deploy your schema and modules to the model database. You can keep this in sync using SQL Compare (or alternatives), or just be diligent about deployment of schema/module changes, then when you create a new database it will automatically inherit the current state of your schema/modules. The problem with this approach (other than depending on you keeping model in sync) is that all new databases will inherit this schema, since there currently is no way to have multiple models.
Have you considered restoring backups?
To add to Aaron's already good answer, I've been using SQLDelta for years - I think it's excellent.
(I have no connection to SqlDelta, other than being a very satisfied customer)
I would like to copy a table from one database to another. I know you can easily do the following if the databases are on the same SQL Server.
SELECT * INTO NewTable FROM existingdb.dbo.existingtable;
Is there any easy way to do this if the databases are on two different SQL Servers, without having to loop through every record in the original table and insert it into the new table?
Also, this needs to be done in code, outside of SQL Server Management Studio.
Yes. add a linked server entry, and use select into using the four part db object naming convention.
Example:
SELECT * INTO targetTable
FROM [sourceserver].[sourcedatabase].[dbo].[sourceTable]
If it’s only copying tables then linked servers will work fine or creating scripts but if secondary table already contains some data then I’d suggest using some third party comparison tool.
I’m using Apex Diff but there are also a lot of other tools out there such as those from Red Gate or Dev Art...
Third party tools are not necessary of course and you can do everything natively it’s just more convenient. Even if you’re on a tight budget you can use these in trial mode to get things done….
Here is a good thread on similar topic with a lot more examples on how to do this in pure sql.
SQL Server(2012) provides another way to generate script for the SQL Server databases with its objects and data. This script can be used to copy the tables’ schema and data from the source database to the destination one in our case.
Using the SQL Server Management Studio, right-click on the source database from the object explorer, then from Tasks choose Generate Scripts.
In the Choose objects window, choose Select Specific Database Objects to specify the tables that you will generate script for, then choose the tables by ticking beside each one of it. Click Next.
In the Set Scripting Options window, specify the path where you will save the generated script file, and click Advanced.
From the appeared Advanced Scripting Options window, specify Schema and Data as Types of Data to Script. You can decide from here if you want to script the indexes and keys in your tables. Click OK.
Getting back to the Advanced Scripting Options window, click Next.
Review the Summary window and click Next.
You can monitor the progress from the Save or Publish Scripts window. If there is no error click Finish and you will find the script file in the specified path.
SQL Scripting method is useful to generate one single script for the tables’ schema and data, including the indexes and keys. But again this method doesn’t generate the tables’ creation script in the correct order if there are relations between the tables.
Microsoft SQL Server Database Publishing Wizard will generate all the necessary insert statements, and optionally schema information as well if you need that:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=56E5B1C5-BF17-42E0-A410-371A838E570A
Generate the scripts?
Generate a script to create the table then generate a script to insert the data.
check-out SP_ Genereate_Inserts for generating the data insert script.
Create the database, with Script Database as... CREATE To
Within SSMS on the source server, use the export wizard with the destination server database as the destination.
Source instance > YourDatabase > Tasks > Export data
Data Soure = SQL Server Native Client
Validate/enter Server & Database
Destination = SQL Server Native Client
Validate/enter Server & Database
Follow through wizard