Is it possible to create unclustered indexes in SQL Server 2005 that are not updated as data is changed (insert/delete/udpate) so I can ensure a stable set of data to report on?
Our data is changing frequently an I want to be able to snapshot it at a point with out having a column to show the latest change date/time and only selecting data based on that. Before I perform my analysis, I could update them and use them from that point forward.
I don't think you can tell an index to remain stale. A separate reporting table would be more appropriate solution.
For example, you can load a snapshot into a new reporting table like:
truncate table BigTableSnapshot
select *
from BigTable
into BigTableSnapshot
Alternatively, SQL Server Enterprise Edition allows you to take snapshots of an entire database. That can be very useful for reporting, although it does have a performance impact.
If you have the Enterprise version of SQL2005 you can snapshot the whole database giving you a read-only / static point in time copy of the database to report against.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms175158.aspx
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I have a production database of 20 TB data. We migrated our database from Oracle to SQL Server. Our old application was based on a Cobol based platform. After migrating to SQL Server indexes are giving good results.
I am creating a schema with new set of indexes without any data. Now I want to migrate only the data.
Import/Export utility will take load log time and will fill up the log files also. Is there any other alternative of this ?
My advice would be:
Set the recovery model to simple. See here.
Remove the indexes.
Batch insert the rows or use select into (this minimizes logging).
Re-create the indexes.
I admit that I haven't had to do this sort of thing in a long time in SQL Server. There may be other methods that are faster -- such as backing up a table space/partition and restoring it in another location.
You may use bcp utility to import/export data. For full details see here https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/tools/bcp-utility?view=sql-server-2017
The limit of 10 GB is reached and different constraints force to circumvent this limit the time that a set of patches can be put in place. An appropriate license is already in place on another server but unfortunately the migration can not be done in a reasonable time. To address the most pressing, we must find the way to override the limit imposed by SQL Server Express. Shrinkage, aliasing, file splitting, index changes, all of these were attempted without success. Suggestions?
Since the 10GB limit is per database you can use the following trick to split the data among several databases. Warning: people with strong DB beliefs please close your eyes now :-)
Move some tables to other database, choosing a set of tables than doesn't break foreign key constraints.
For each table create a view with the same name in the original database like this:
create view TableName as
select * from TheOtherDB..TableName
In this way you use the view as the table and you don't have to change a single query, SQL Server allows INSERT, UPDATEand DELETE on that type of views as if they were a table, but the data is stored in the other DB.
Of course after you migrate to the new server you should move the data back to one database.
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'm upgrading my SQL Server 2000 database to SQL Server 2008 R2. I want to make use of Change Data Capture feature. Im my existing application I have the similar functionality, but I'm using triggers and historical table with Hst_ prefix with almost similar schema as the original tables.
My question is: is there any way to migrate my data from Hst_ tables to the tables used by CDC feature?
I was thinking of doing that like this:
I have the table Cases.
I'm using my custom historization mechanism , so I also have also three triggers (on insert, update and delete) and a twin table Hst_Cases.
Now I'm enabling CDC on table Cases
CDC creates function, which returns historical data (fn_cdc_get_all_changes_dbo_Cases) and also a system table, which actually holds the data (cdc.dbo_Cases_CT).
I could insert data from Hst_Cases to cdc.dbo_Cases_CT, but I have the following problems:
I don't know how to get __$start_lsn and __$seqval.
It is difficult to figure out __$update_mask (I have to compare each two rows).
Is there the only way to do that? I want to avoid the situation then I join "new" historical data with the "old" historical data from Hst_ tables.
Thanks!
You typically don't want to use the capture tables to store long-term change data, it would be better to have an SSIS package move the capture data to permananent tables. If you do use them, I think if you ever have to restore your database, they'll be empty after restore unless you use the KEEP_CDC option when restoring. You'll also need to disable the job that automatically purges the capture tables.
If you create your own tables for storage, you can omit the lsn and mask fields.
What is the best method to transfer data from sales table to sales history table in sql server 2005. sales history table will be used for reporting.
Take a look at SSAS. OLAP is built for reporting and is easy to query with tools like excel pivot tables.
Bulkcopy is fast and it will not use the transaction log. One batch run at the end of the day.
Deleting the copied records from your production server is a different situation that needs to be planed on that server's maintenance approach/plans. Your reporting server solution should not interfere with or affect the production server.
Keep in mind that your reporting server is not meant to be a backup of the data but rather a copy made exclusively for reporting purposes.
Also check on the server settings of your reporting server to be on Simple recovery model.
Most solutions will require 2 steps;
-copy the records from source to target
-delete records from source.
It is essential that your source table have a primary key.
The "best" method depends on a lot of things.
How many records?
Is this a production environment?
What tools do you have?
Unless you are moving a large amount of data, a simple stored procedure should do the trick.
A sql server job can manage the timing of when to call the proc.
if you just want to move the data to another table, use BulkCopy/BulkInsert. if you want to build reporting I would suggest a BI solution such as MS Analysis Service (OLAP).
It is difficult and in my opinion ugly to maintain two or more history/archive tables in the same database. For a reporting solution you will be considering all the tables for that piece of information anyway. History/Archive tables should only be used if you are going to put the data away and not touch it for a long period of time, ie. archive it away outside the operational DB.