I've got experience with MySQL, DB2, and Oracle, but aside from writing a few queries, I've never used SQL Server.
My question is a three parter:
1) For a developer, what are some good "free" client tools to look at, and why (by "free" I mean open source, freeware, or the tools that come with SQL Server itself)?
2) I plan to run Developer or Express Edition on my workstation for development, and either Standard or Enterprise Edition in the testing and production environments. What methods exist if any for transferring data between different servers and the different editions?
3) Are there any common pitfalls that someone like me (who is used to the other database systems that I mentioned) might encountered during development?
TIA
SQL Server Express with tools.
All editions have the same SQL language features and code is 100% portable between them. There are 3rd party tools to synch changes, but moving entire DBs is easy using inbuilt tools.
Nah. The problem with databases is SQL and set theory, not the choice of RDBMS. If you understand databases/SQL you'll be OK.
SQL Server Management Studio which comes with SQL Server (any editions), or you can download it separately. SQL Server Profiler which doesn't come with Express.
Management studio has tools for backup/restore database. You can also consider detach/attach method to synchronize db .
It's hard to say. But if you had Mysql experience you will be pleasantly surprised by SQL Server.
UPDATE
There are so many things that each DB vendor implements differently that it's really hard to focus on some of them. One thing I was not used before is that SQL Server doesn't let unique columns to have more than 1 NULL value(there is a workaround though)
Related
I need to install SQL Server 2008 on the server. I wanted to know which edition of SQL Server 2008 would scale for the usage of 350+users. Can you please share your views to select on which would be more appropriate?
SQL Server 2008 Datacenter
SQL Server 2008 Enterprise (32/64bit)
SQL Server 2008 Standard
SQL Server 2008 Developer
SQL Server 2008 Workgroup
Thanks,
With only user counts to go on and no idea how well the DB is architected AND how well written/designed the software application is for scalability makes this question very hard to say whether you will have scalability problems. Scalability of SQL Server has been well tested but often it is not SQL Server's fault that something is scaling badly. It is often a failing of the application code or a poor DB design.
However, with what you have given us information wise.....
Options 1-3 should be fine in general for that many users.
Option 4 is only meant to be on a developers workstation.
Option 5 is meant for small teams / users.
I'd say any of 1, 2 or 3 will work fine. Which of those you choose is going to depend on what type of application you are developing and what features you will be using. The Datacenter version is probably overkill, so it's probably going to come down to whether you need the features that Enterprise offers over Standard.
Probably the most significant difference is the CPU support - Standard only supports 4 CPUs. You can see a detailed comparison here
Generally I think the same as the tow above but it depends also from many various factors.
We currently use SQL Server 2005 Enterprise for our fairly large application, that has its roots in pre SQL Server 7.0. The tables are normalized and designed mainly for the application. The developers for the most part have the legacy SQL Server mindset. Only using the part of TSQL that existed back in 7.0, not using any of the new features of tsql or that are bundled with 2005.
We're currently trying to build on demand reports using some crappy third party software, and will eventually try to build a data warehouse using more of the same crappy third party software (name removed to protect the guilty, don't ask I will not tell). The rationale for this was that we didn't want to spend more money to buy this additional software from Microsoft (this was not my decision, I had no input, but is my problem now). But from what I can tell is that Enterprise includes all of these tools, or am I missing something?
What comes bundled with SQL Server 2005 Enterprise as far as reporting and data warehousing? Will we need to purchase anything else? is there actually anything else that can be purchased from Microsoft in this regard?
Well, first - I would go with 2008 R2 for that regard, much better for reporting.
DAta warehousing in 2005 is just that. 2008 did introduce optimizatoins for star schemata in the query optimizer.
2005 I think has report services that you can use - though they got a LOT better with 2008 and 2008 R2 (graphs etc.)
Besides that think getting rid of SQL for analysis - the data warehouse should get loaded into cubes in SQL Server Analysis Services and run the reports against those.
All that (reporting services, analysis services) is part of the enterprise edition you use. There is hardly any use for something else unless you have unusual needs.
Enterprise edition contains Reporting Services that you can install that. It is a powerful service for reporting.
If you find you're unhappy with Reporting Services (seems to not work well for about 35% of the people who try it), please take a look at Windward Reports. With that said, I hope it does work well for you as that is your least expensive and quickest route forward.
We run SQL Server 2005 exclusively for databases that we use (I'm trying to push to get them upgraded, but alas!). On the client side with Management Studio, are there any benefits to upgrading to SSMS2008 when only connecting to SQL Server 2005 databases? I've seen that Intellisense won't work, so I'm curious if it's worth the hassle.
Yes, there's quite a few improvements intellisense is definitely a big one for developers (Intellisense only works against SQL Server 2008 databases, unfortunately), but there are also other things like T-SQL Debugger, Activity Monitor, the Object Explorer Details
Also, multi-server queries, and the ability to color the connections (get a visual clue whether you're on dev, test or prod system) and a lot more.
See some good background info here at Simple-Talk.
It is up to you. My favorite is search feature. See link for details.
Having worked with SQL 2005 since it came out, upgraded my client tools to 2008 when it came out, and still not upgraded our server, I don't think it is worth upgrading, especially if you aren't moving to SQL 2008 on your server anytime soon. There is no real harm in upgrading, but you need to get familiar with a slightly different tool that IMO is neither worse nor better.
There are a lot of things to like about SQL2008 SSMS, even if you are connecting to SQL 2005 servers:
Customize the columns in the object views, including some very useful ones like DB size
When viewing a query execution plan, it will list any indexes that it recommends
Color-code server connections
Execute SQL statements against multiple servers
In our environment, we have a mix of SQL 2000, 2005, and 2008 servers, so I still use SQL 2005 SSMS to connect to all three (The new "Activity Monitor" in SQL2008 SSMS doesn't work for SQL 2000 servers.)
I don't want to sound like taking sides, but Toad 4.6 rulez! :-)
Exact duplicate:
Advantages of MS SQL Server 2008 over MS SQL Server 2005?
i am a sql developer and i use sql 2005. i want to now to pass to 2008 but i am a little affraid. can anyone gives me some advices about this. should i still continue using sql 2005 or is better pass all my projects to 2008 due to better performace?
Who is going to use your projects; if they are going to customers with existing SQL Licenses then 2005 might be the way to go; assuming they are running 2005. SQL 2005 databases will work on 2008; though if you use some of the new language features in 2008 then the SQL2008 databases wont be backwards compatible to 2005.
If you are controlling where they are going to be deployed; some of the new features in sql 2008 might be of interest; better full text search, improved Analysis services, reporting services and some language tweaks. If you are managing the servers; your admins will likely appreciate the new management features in 2008.
I moved to 2008 because I am heavy into SSIS and have large databases meaning: The backup compression and increased concurrent processes in SSIS for 2008 make it worth it for me.
I moved 6 projects from 2005 to 2008 without any problems except reporting services. To me the biggest benefit is the SQL Management Studio enhancements like auto complete and change history.
The only reason I did upgrade was because I work in education and Microsoft is very gracious on licensing.
In general, unless you hear that it is a disaster, I think you should strive to use the most recent release at the earliest opportunity. The advances in server functionality and the tool set will usually offset the time it takes you to learn the new features. All software is built with planned obsolescence in mind, so you will eventually need to migrate to newer technology. If you make a habit of migrating your systems to the latest technology, you will find that the migrations become relatively painless.
One of the benefits of SQLServer 2008 with respect to SSIS is that it includes very fast bulk connectors for Oracle and Teradata (well, the development and enterprise versions do).
So if you need to move data between SQLServer 2008 and those databases you get this for no additional cost.
See Microsoft Connectors for Oracle and Teradata by Attunity
Another major benefit in SQLServer 2008 is the new Change Data Capture (CDC) functionality which means you can build your application in any way you like and then if at later time you are interested in starting some processing when table X changed, you can turn on CDC for that table and get a change table that contains all the changes to table X with minimal overhead. Ben Hall did a useful post on this.
I think SQL 2008 has somewhat advantage in compare to sql 2005
New data types(date,time,files stream)
2.Backup compressin
3.Data compression
4.policy based management.
If anyone know better answer kindly inform
Can it be done and if so, how?
You can also check out Sync Services for Sql Server and Compact edition. The benefit of Sync Services is that you don't need a replication server or IIS and you can also sync between compact edition databases. This method involves writing a fair bit more code and is fairly involved, but I'd recommend looking into it as a lightweight service.
You can use Merge Replication. Theres a tutorial here SQL Server Compact 3.5 How-to Tutorials (Number 5).
Certainly replication is possible, as is Sync Services if you're not afraid to get your hands dirty. It depends on the details of what you need:
Sometimes-connected application wanting to have a read-only cache: Sync Services
Sometimes-connected application wanting to have part or full update ability: Sync Services
Remote site with multiple workstations needing read/write access to data: replication if you can get a secure network connection that's stable enough, otherwise look at extending Syn Services to work with SQL Express (or full SQL Server) based on the sample here: Sync using SQL Express
If you just want a SQL CE database and you're working with a SQL 2008 server then the wizard in Visual Studio 2008 SP1 will do all the work for you, you need only add 1 line of code to it if you want bi-directional support. If you can't upgrade then it will take more work with SQL 2005, and it's only reliable if you have at least SP2.
I'm in the middle of a project that requires multiple sites to have a sub-set of data in an environment where each site may lose it's connection to the head office at times, we've managed to get Sync Services to work with SQL 2008 at the head office and SQL Express 2008 at each site with full change tracking (2008 feature) and it's working great. It does require a reasonable amount of code (C# and SQL), so we've used some pretty smart templates to help. Be aware that.
Perhaps you could refine your question with more details?
Because of budget constraints I think it will have to beta-tester's approch,i tried following the guide and cant seem to get it working. Before I spend time getting it to work, I just confrim, Replicating between SqlServer 2005 and Compact Edition is something that can be done?
I just confrim, Replicating between
SqlServer 2005 and Compact Edition is
something that can be done?
Yes it can definately be done using either Merge Replication or Sync Services