I have two database that belongs to two different SQL Server. Their database schema should be very similar but somehow different application generate different 'default schema' on the tables and views. Now when I am trying to compare the schema by using SSDT, I don't know how to ignore this default schema (I found it has a setting but it didn't value, same result showing as treating them as different set of objects).
e.g. Database A vs Database B
[dbuser].[TableA] vs [dbo].[TableA]
SSDT claims they are different..... :S
Please give me some advice... I expect I don't have to hack the database in order to achieve the comparison....
Save yourself the headache get sql-compare from redgate. You shoukd be able to get a trial and test your scenaior. This tool plus their SQL toolbelt is a must for anyone dealing with multiple sql servers. http://www.red-gate.com/products/sql-development/sql-compare/
Related
I have a table under dbo and an almost identical table under a schema called tmp. Visual Studio Schema Compare does not appear to let me select one set of dbo-based objects and compare them with a similar set of tmp-based objects.
The database server is locked down and it is not possible to create a second database. Also, SQL server is unusable on a local dev machine due to resource constraints. The tmp schema would allow me to make changes to tmp, then compare and push those changes to the dev schema of "dbo".
What's the best way to compare these two sets of objects?
You can compare your objects with different schemas with ApexSQL Diff and it has free Community edition.
By creating custom schema mapping, you’ll be able to match objects with different schemas compare them and synchronize if needed.
If you just want to compare objects to see differences and create a merge script, you can check out a free tool - ApexSQL Compare.
Since RedGate tool is already mentioned, one more tool that can help you out is dbForge Schema Compare.
Two methods come to mind. Try redgates sql-compare tool, worth its weight in gold imo.
Another option would be to use the 'generate scripts' functionality of ssms and then use the diff tool of your choice to compare the resultant sql text files.
Dear all, Currently I am just researching how I could handle the change of the collation on the database.
Somebody made an unusual decision to create accent sensitive database for global use... but I am on the way to handle this!
REASON: of changing the collation is that database contains data collected from different countries and as we all know some of cultures have their own letters.
With the respect for the customers, our organization would like to have Accent Insensitive database. That will allow users to request data from the server without any limitations using local characters.
As far as I have find out, there may be an option to drop constraints and etc. change collation and then just to bring everything back. In this case I am afraid if this would be enough to affect already existing data (columns).
Another way, I have found an article in Collation change on 2005 and 2008 server. However, this does not include the 2012 server.
Also I am taking the complexity of this example into consideration as well.
I believe that I am not in an easy phase. But I am hoping to get few advises what would be the best and safest way to handle this.
Thank you for your concerns and assistance.
UPDATE let me add what architecture do we have: The complete system contains 4 databases and more than 1.000 tables in total. So my expectations is that not all of the possible ways may work in an optimal way.
me too i had to deal with a similar issue because of a different reason: ancient databases with an old SQL collation installed ages ago on a SQL6.5 server that has been inplace upgraded for each version from sql 7 to sql 2005 and now should be updated to sql 2012.
why all these inplace upgrades? because the actual collation was the server collation and was so old that is not available during then install process of a recent version (2000+) of sql server...
i decided to drop all that old rubbish so i had to find a way that allowed me to move to a new installation with a windows collation.
i had to exclude the data migration (create a new database and import data) because of the lack of documentation and the huge number of customizations, triggers, hidden rules and so on.
the solution i used (the order matters):
disable automatic statistics generation
script the creation of all foreign keys and then drop them
script unique and primary indexes and then drop them
script all remaining indexes and then drop them
script custom statistics and then drop them
script CHECK and DEFAULT constraints and then drop them
now you can run the ALTER commands needed to change the collation of the columns and change the collation of the database itself.
when done repeat the above in reverse order to rebuild all the needed objects.
it happens that if the database is so old as is mine you may incur in something funny like existing foreign key that references fields with different datatypes.
Changing collation of all existing columns is a real pain. I suggest a side-by-side migration rather than alter each column individually. Create a new database with the desired collation containing only empty tables. Copy data from the old db to the new one using INSERT...SELECT (or the ETL tool of your choice), and then create constraints, indexes, and other database objects.
Consider upvoting the Make it easy to change collation on a database SQL Server feature request.
There are a number of complicated solutions on the internet for inplace collation changes but the simplest (and safest) way we have found is to script out the database, alter the script to create a new db with the collation set at the start and then import the data to the new database.
We achieve this using MS SQL Server 2012 Management Studio in the following way:
Script out all database objects with Tasks -> Generate Scripts -> Script entire Database and all Database objects
Alter the script with the following 2 changes and then run it to create a new database:
a) Change DB name to MY-NEW-DB
b) Under the CREATE DATABASE statement add: ALTER DATABASE [MY-NEW-DB] collate Latin1_General_CS_AS
If desired, use a tool like RG SQL Compare to compare the old and new database to verify all indexes, constraints, types etc were the same and collation on relevant columns only was changed.
Run Tasks->Import Data ensuring 'Enable Identity Insert' checked. All data transferred to the new case sensitive database correctly.
Run DBCC CHECKDB if you wish to check consistency
I have been working with a sql server 2012 database for a number of weeks and now I would like to change the collation of the database.
I thought it would be easy to just change its overall setting but unfortunately this is only applied to that point forth and not the current setup of database.
So I need to generate a script to change the collation of the database, including its existing content/structure.
Anyone can assist with automating this or any tips how might generate a script to achieve this?
Just did a quick Google search and came up with these:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms175835.aspx (not so helpful, only explains how to set the collation on a database, doesn't go into changing existing tables)
Update Collation of all fields in database on the fly (this is what you want, I think)
I have a sql server 2005 database that I want to setup replication for. The problem is that the database has two schemas both of which have a table with the same name in it.
For some reason even though the tables are in different schemas the replication creation fails when done through management studio due to conflicting article names (i assume its trying to create the same name for both tables in the different schemas).
Is there any workaround for doing this in the studio, I can probably write a script or program to do this but just for this one thign is a bit annoying and it probably wont be allowed to run in production.
Perhaps there is a hot fix or something I'm not aware about?
Cheers,
There doesn't appear to be a way around this purely using the new publication wizard in SSMS - the article name is always the table name without a schema-qualifier, and can't be customised from the wizard - although there is a work-around if you use the scripting options.
Go through the wizard as normal, but at the end of the process, untick the "create publication" option and select the "Generate script file..." option.
Once the file is created, open it and edit the article names so that they no longer conflict, then execute the script in the publication database.
could you think of having two publications for your database, each publication being linked to one of the schemas? Of course, this means that you'll have to define two different subscribers, one for each publication. The feasability of this proposal will of course highly depend on how you need to distribute your data among the subscribers, and on the way your users access the data
We have a production SQL Server 2005 database server with the production version of our application's database on it. I would like to be able to copy down the data contents of the production database to a development server for testing.
Several sites (and Microsoft's forums) suggest using the Backup/Restore options to copy databases from one server from another, but this solution is unworkable for several reasons (I don't have backup authority on our production database, I don't want to overwrite permissions on the development server, I don't want to overwrite structure changes on the development server, etc...)
I've tried using the SQL Import/Export Wizard in SQL Server 2005, but it always reports primary key violations. How can I copy the contents of a database from the production server to development without using the "Backup/Restore" method?
Well without the proper rights it really becomes more tedious and less than ideal.
One way that I would recommend though is to drop all of your constraints and indexes and then add them again once the data has been imported/exported.
Not an elegant solution but it'll process really fast.
EDIT:
Another option is to create an SSIS package where you specifically dump the tables in an order that won't violate the constraints.
I often use SQL Data Compare (http://www.red-gate.com/products/sql_data_compare/index.htm) for this task: the synchronization scripts it writes will remove the relationships during the transfer and reapply them, but that is OK in most development cases. It works especially well with smaller databases or subsets of databases.
If your database is large, I would recommend finding someone with the keys to the kingdom. Doing an out of sequence backup could mess with the ability to restore the database from the primary backup (if they are doing partials during the week for example) by marking records backed up when they are only in your backup, so don't try to bypass that security if you are unsure why it is there.
Assuming that you can connect to both DB's from the same machine (which almost always you can - I do it with my production servers via a VPN).
For each table
DELETE FROM devserv.dbo.tablename;
SET identity_insert [devserv.dbo.tablename] ON;
INSERT into devserv.dbo.tablename SELECT * from prodserv.dbo.tablename;
SET identity_insert [devname.dbo.tablename] OFF;
It is obviously worth noting that you will need to do this in a certain order if your tables have foreign key constraints.
The import/ export wizard is notorious for this sort of thing, and actually has a bug that makes it even less useful in working out the dependencies (sorry, don't have the details to hand).
SSIS does a much better job, but you'll have to add each table copy task by hand (in fact a datasource, copy task and data destination objects. It's a little tedious to set up (more than it should be), but a lot simpler than writing your own code.
One tip: avoid generating an SSIS project with the import/ export wizard, thinking it will be easier to just tweak it. It generates something that most people would find unrecognisable, even with some SSIS experience!
If you do not have backup permission on the production server, I guess this is because you are using a shared SQL Server from a webhoster. In this case, check if your webhoster provides the tool called myLittleBackup. It allows installing a db from one server to another in a few clicks...
I'd contact someone that does have access to backup the database. Permissions are usually there for a reason.
I might consider getting a backup as there will be one wether you run it or not (t least in theory a Prod DB is being backed up :) )
Then just restore to a brand new database on your dev box so you dont conflict with anything or anyone else.
If you restore to a new DB you could also pull the tables and data across manually if you wanted and since you create the DB you give yourself rights and it's all ok. There's a number of other methods, all tedious.
It is obviously worth noting that you will need to do this in a certain order if your tables have foreign key constraints.
We just use the SQL Server Database Publishing Wizard at work.
You would use this little utility to generate a T-SQL script that describes your production database (including all its data). Then connect to your dev server and run the generated script.
If you have to avoid backup/restore this is what I would recommend (these steps assuming you don't want to maintain the old schema NAME, just the structure) -
Download opendbdiff. Choose 'Compare' between source and (empty) destination. Choose sync. script tab and copy only the create table rows (without dbo.sysdiagrams tables etc.) paste into sql managment studio new query, delete all the schemas names appearing before the table names.
Now you have the full structure including primary keys, identity etc. Next step - use sql server import and export data like you did before (make sure you choose edit mappings and choose destination schema as dbo etc.). Also make sure you tick drop and recreate destination table.
On your Dev machine, setup a linked server to your production machine. Then just
INSERT dev.db.dbo.table (fieldlist)
SELECT (fieldlist) from prod.db.dbo.table