Sql Server sync alternatives - sql-server

We have two Sql 2008 R2 database. First and main one is on-premise which is used by our stock management and accounting systems.
The second is for our web site and it is on a 3th party hosting firm and that database is updated manually by a standard XML file operation
(creating XML from on-premise database, sending it to web server, reading from XML file & insert/update/delete web database)
we need to get rid of that manual XML operation and sync that two databases automatically, but problem is our hosting firm does not allow "Replication" or "Linked Server" facilities on their "Sql Server" system. That's way we can not sync databases with these "Sql Server" facilities.
I am trying find out sync alternatives for that scenario without changing the hosting system.
What options can we use ?
Is Microsoft Sync Framework can be used for this scenario? ( I'm not sure if it is just for the Microsoft Azure Sql system)
Thanks…

if you're fine coding, then Sync Framework can do this.
Sync Framework can sync SQL Compact, Express, Server, Azure or LocalDB
But bear in mind that Sync Framework will need to create some Sync-related objects on your databases (triggers, stored procedures, tables, etc...)

It sounds like you need a hosting provider that provides these services.
It is typical for a hosting provider to provide an on-demand or always VPN connection to the production servers from the client location to the servers at the hosting location. Such a service is often needed for support of online systems. If you had such a connection then having SQL Server do syncs would be no problem.
Any major (Rack Space, Peer1, etc) provider would be able to set up such a system.
It probably won't be as inexpensive as your current provider.

Well if changing a provider is not an option, at list in the short term and you need something right now, you can always automate parts or all your current process.
For that you can at least use:
PowerShell (or even plain old cmd.exe) script(batch) and bcp.exe to export and import your files on both ends and PowerShell and ftp to transfer your files from one server to another.
SQLServer Integration Services on premises to export and send files via ftp to your hosting location. And SSIS to grab and import those files at your hosting location.

Related

How to connect to an on-premises SQL Server from an Azure ML notebook?

I typically use pyodbc when running jupyter notebooks from my machine, but this does not work on Azure ML. My assumption is that this is being caused by Azure ML not knowing if I'm on my company's network as I typically need a VPN to the server if I'm not in office. The only solutions I can find online involve copying the data over on Azure Data Factory however I need to avoid this if possible as there are many tables I will need to experiment with, but nothing is intended to be long term and I'm unsure what I will even end up using.
Ideally there is a way to make pyodbc work but any other suggestions are welcome. I have researched integration runtimes but was unsure if that would solve my problem here.
The only solutions I can find online involve copying the data over on
Azure Data Factory however I need to avoid this if possible as there
are many tables I will need to experiment with, but nothing is
intended to be long term and I’m unsure what I will even end up using.
Ideally there is a way to make pyodbc work but any other suggestions
Unfortunately, the on-Prem SQL Server is not supported as a Data Source in Azure ML.
Only the Data sources available below are supported:-
Approach1)
You can copy your data from the on-premises SQL database to Azure SQL via copy tool in Azure Data factory and connect to Azure SQL via Azure Machine learning by directly connecting to it via Datasource like below:-
You can also use Self-hosted integration run time to connect to your SQL server on-prem in your data factory:-
Click on Option 2 to download the Integration runtime and set it in your local machine with the Registration keys mentioned above:-
Approach2)
If there’s a large data You can automate your entire copy process from the on-prem SQL server to Azure SQL by using the Azure DevOps pipeline.
References:-
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/775844/unable-to-connect-sql-server-to-azure-ml-pipeline By Ramr-msft
How To: Azure Data Factory CI/CD with Azure DevOps pipelines — The YAML WAY! | by Raghavendra Bharadwaj | Servian

How do I access a 3rd party database using Access

I have a scheduling software that has a database of clients, client pets, pets grooming styles, appointments and invoices.
The generic reports that are given with the software are not giving me the information that I need to go. Support from the software company is telling me to use Access to build the reports that I require.
I am not seeing how to connect to the software's DB to use in Access to generate my custom reports.
Any help or links to the information for this would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance everybody
One of MS Access' unique features is connecting to external RDBMs' ( SQL Server, Oracle, Postgres, MySQL, SQLite) in complement to its default Jet/ACE SQL Engine. In fact, Access can connect to any other ODBC-compliant system even Quickbooks or your software assuming it has an ODBC API.
An .MDF is a SQL Server main database file but usually you do not connect directly to the file but the server instance. Most likely, you are required to connect Access to the SQL Server database the software sits on. In fact, you will be doing what the software does: connect to a backend database. No software or web/mobile app is without a database or data store of some kind.
MS Access backend setup is very easy with many online tutorials:
Find the SQL Server instance and all needed credentials (server address or host, port, schema, user, password).
Be sure to have an installed ODBC Driver (usually already available if SQL Server is installed) or check if software has a pre-defined DSN. Free MSSQL ODBC downloads are available online. Open odbcad32.exe to see current computer driver/DSN installs.
In a saved Access .accdb/.mdb database, under External Data tab in MSAccess.exe, click ODBC database (globe icon) where you walk through a wizard to connect to aforementioned Driver or DSN (machine or user). You can either import tables or link live tables which upon successful connection will prompt you to select the database tables.
From there you can use linked tables like any other local table within MS Access including forms, reports, macros, and modules.
In fact, knowing the ODBC connection you can work in most programming languages that maintain database APIs including Python, PHP, R, Perl, Java, C#, VB, even your everyday MS Excel to interact with scheduling software's data.

How to sync Firebird with SQL Server database

I have a desktop app which uses a Firebird database. And it works fine, yet I want to also have access to that data online.
So I thought it might be possible to sync the data between Firebird and SQL Server. I know there is a tool called dbconvert but its quite expensive.
Any other solutions which come to your mind? Thanks!
You do not need to change the database. If you want to access your desktop app online you can, for example, place your desktop APP + firebird database on windows server and create a access through RemoteApp. Then you can accessed your application from anywhere (if the client OS can RemoteApp and online)
update
You can place application and database on a different type of server if you will reach them through some "remote desktop".

Simple VB/SQL app and AZURE

I have a simple ms sql 2012 express database & a simple VB Express 2010 application as its front end.
Can I simply host my MS SQL database on Azure & update the application to interrogate the hosted database? This would mean, the application would still be local, but the DB would be hosted. My offices are distributed & if we could do this it would save quite a bit of hassle.
Do I need to use a virtual machine, cloud services or straight hosting? Its difficult for me to understand the subtleties each service.
I've had a look at the azure services information and the documentation is pitched a little high for me. I just wanted to know if this is relatively simple thing to do & if anyone has has any pointers to How To's or Noob guides to azure.
It's absolutely possible and in fact, super easy to set up.
Check out this simple step-by-step instruction on how to set up SQL Server DB on Windows Azure - https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/net/common-tasks/sql-azure-management/
You can even connect to it from your SQL Server Management Studio just like you would connect to a local database or a database on your network.
Ideally - yes, you can change the connection string used by the VB desktop app to reference the Windows Azure SQL Database instance instead of the local database. That said, SQL Database is not 100% compatible with SQL Server. Be sure to check out the differences at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/ff394115.aspx
Can I simply host my MS SQL database on Azure & update the application
to interrogate the hosted database?
Yes, your SQL Azure database is accessible via a connection string, but you have to make sure that you create a firewall rule in SQL Azure to allow your locally hosted or remotely hosted applications to access the database. Everything is turned off by default.
Do I need to use a virtual machine, cloud services or straight
hosting?
I'm not exactly sure what you're asking here, but a VM may be overkill, as that gives you basically a place to host a VM in Azure. You control the O/S, patching, etc. A cloud service (a web or worker role) is a little less maintenance heavy as the O/S, patches, updates, etc. are maintained by Azure and you just worry about your application. Straight hosting - are you talking about hosting on 1&1 or GoDaddy or something? If so, that's really no different than your VB app running locally and accessing your Azure database. For this option, just make sure you have your firewall rules set properly, otherwise you won't be able to access the database.
Hopefully this helps. Good luck!
Azure has some specific requirements that need to be met (like every table has to have a Clustered Index), and it does not support some functionality that is available on "normal" SQL Server (like replication, FILESTREAM data, or data compression).
Other than that, as long as your app meets the requirements, there should not be a reason for it not to work on Azure. The majority of the functionality not supported by Azure is most likely out6 of the scope of what a "noob" would implement, so you probably are safe.
However, Azure might be overly expensive for your needs. It might be cheaper to go for hosting the database somewhere. This would mean you would only have to change the connection string of the application to point to the new database server (though there could be additional limitations imposed by your hosting provider).
Good luck with whichever option you end up taking!

Replication advice for local SQL Server to hosted server

we're close to migrating our legacy MS Access app to SQL Server for our internal warehouse management system. Our customers are often asking us for access to the data for e-commerce integration and general reporting. Once the migration is complete I would like to provide open access to the data via web services and odata. However I don't want to host these services as we are on a slow ADSL connection which won't cope with the traffic.
My question is, can I replicate (one-way) to a remote DB hosted by shared-hosting companies such as Hostgator? I see they have shared windows hosting with unlimited MS SQL DBs. Are there any special requirements on the hosted-side? For instance do I need to explicitly set-up replication on hosting db or is it managed on the client-side?
If this is possible then I might be able to run all our web services and reporting apps on the host's servers, and only the replicated data need travel over WAN. What sort of control is there over replication? Such as bandwidth throttling, replication periods etc? For instance when & how often does replication take place?
I'm new to SQL Server in general and some of the topics are a little overwhelming.
Thanks for your help.
You could try setting up transactional replication with a push subscription with the distributor on your side. The relevant bit is how the distribution agent connects to the subscriber. distrib.exe supports both trusted and SQL authentication, so you should be good to go either way.

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