When I look at the SQL Server my SharePoint site is using I see several databases in there that all appear to be used by my site. Is there somewhere to find documentation on what each database stores?
Here's the MSDN article: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms998452.aspx
It comes with this Microsoft warning:
Warning: Modifying the database schema
or database structures is not
supported. Changes that you make to
the database contents may be
overwritten when you install updates
or service packs for Windows
SharePoint Services, or when you
upgrade an installation to the next
product version.
SharePoint comes with a rich set of APIs that may be better to use than connecting directly to the database. The Microsoft Develper center is a good starting point for working with MOSS APIs
For info on what each database has try here
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc678868.aspx
Related
My team which is a part of a university needs me to develop a web based application for them which can be accessed by any team member. However the university doesn't provide us with a database.
We do have a portion in their server but that's for our public website. Even if I put the application on that server, I need to have a database. I can't use an excel sheet for storing all the data cause it will be huge. I am looking for an optimal solution.
Never fear there are a number of non RDBMS (Oracle, MySQL, MS SQL Server, etc.) solutions around.
You can try many of the document databases under No-SQL banner, with some popular options being:
RavenDB if you are developing your web application in the Microsoft stack.
MongoDB is a great well supported open source document database.
BaseX or Sedna are useful XML databases.
Alternately you can look to Cloud (some offer free services, others are commercial and will need to pay for) databases such as:
Amazon RDS
Elasticsearch
Windows Azure
Choose:
http://www.sqlite.org/
http://www.db4o.com/
Both will give you a database ability with no prior machine configuration or setup package.
For a small team group, specially with no more than 3 developers, I would recommend you to look at CloudBees. They offer a free tier where you can have on the same platform a repository, a Continuous Integration tool, so you can build and test your app every time you do a commit, and a runtime environment where you can deploy a Java, a Play or a PHP application. You can also create free databases.
In the case you wanted to have a visual git repository, you can use GitHub and link your source code with your Jenkins job.
In this way, you don't need multiple tools for your development environment.
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
Everything I've read on setting up External Content Types with BDC seems to use SharePoint 2010, rather than SharePoint Foundation (SPF) 2010 (the free version). Even though it also includes BDC, it doesn't seem to include support for creating a Secure Store App ID for alternate credentials (like full-blown SP does). I cannot seem to get an External List to read from a SQL database table because of this. I'm using a Database that is on the same server as my SPF installation, so it's not doing any remote connections. Can anyone point me to something helps explain this properly?
After reviewing a bunch of articles, the solution appears to be explained here: http://wyldesharepoint.blogspot.com/2010/06/setting-up-external-content-type-for.html
Yes, Secure Store is for Standard+.
This link might help you on the right path:
https://sharepoint.stackexchange.com/questions/3331/sharepoint-2010-foundation-bcs-errors/
i have an access front end. the backend is a sql server database. can i have users download the runtime and have the full functionality of being able to edit the sql server database from the access front end? why is it free? what makes it different from the whole version?
In a nutshell, the Access Runtime version allows you to distribute an Access Database application to machines that do not have Access or Office installed. It won't allow you to open the database in design view or to make any changes to the database apart from adding or editing data. They can contain the data tables or can be set up using linked tables so that you have a central database (in some cases a shared .mdb file on a network, or something like SQL server)
Because many Office 2007 installations are not the professional version (Home and Student, Small Business etc) which does not include Access, making the runtime freely available is to encourage Access Developers to build databases which may be used in such cases or even in instances where office is not installed at all.
See: Running in Runtime vs. Full Access 2007
In a nutshell, the runtime version allows you to change data but not objects (forms, reports, queries, etc).
I've recently inherited a database driven e-commerce site written in C# ASP.Net, with an MS SQL database.
I have had little or no experience with this exact type of application up to this point, although I am comfortable exploring code, and am familiar with SQL query structure and C# (and web mark-up languages too).
So far I've been able to make all the adjustments I've wanted to to the application, have debugged some stuff, removed some compiler errors, added a few new simple functions, and am enjoying myself rather.
I am experiencing some problems with displaying the information from the database within Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition.
Having faced initial setup problems with the web.config file I'm a little wary about the next steps to take!
I currently have a local copy of web.config, which connects to a local copy of the database during development.
When I compile and upload any new versions of the application, I exclude the local version of web.config, so that the remote version uses it's own web.config file to connect to the remote database.
In order to see any of the database information on the web pages during development , I have to run the website in the browser.
Should I be able to see this info in Design View in VS by creating a connection to the database in the database explorer? Will this affect the application when it is running remotely on the webserver? (as the connection would have been made to the local database and not the remote one, and hence the connection string would be different)
All of the DataGrids are blank in VS design view. If I choose a Data Source for them using the Smart Tags in design view, will they use the right Data Source when running remotely? Should I drop the local copy of the database altogether? Connecting to the remote database during development seems rather dangerous to me!
I hope this is clear, any and all help/links/pointers welcome!
Using different Web.config in development and production environment to learn how you can use different configs
Also check Scott's tip, http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/09/21/tip-trick-automating-dev-qa-staging-and-production-web-config-settings-with-vs-2005.aspx (Not sure if it applies to Visual Web Developer)