Command Line Utilities -N- Azure

I knew Windows Azure SQL Databases have been around for a couple of years but never had the time or need to research them. With a possible data center consolidation in the future, I was wondering if my company could leverage a Windows Azure SQL Databases to reduce the total cost of ownership for certain applications? Today, I will be working with the sample [AUTOS] cloud database that I created in a previous blog. I want to test connectivity to this cloud database using common programs and tools that my…

Column Design with SSMS

Most of the articles that I presented so far for database development have been centered around the exact Microsoft T-SQL syntax to perform a certain operation. At the University of Rhode Island, I learnt how to program in Pascal before typing in my first ANSI SQL statement. In short, I will always be some type of developer in my heart. However, many people do not come from a computer science and math background. The SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) has menus and dialog boxes to achieve many of the same…

Table Design with SSMS

Most of the articles that I presented so far for database development have been centered around the exact Microsoft T-SQL syntax to perform a certain operation. At the University of Rhode Island, I learnt how to program in Pascal before typing in my first ANSI SQL statement. In short, I will always be some type of developer in my heart. However, many people do not come from a computer science and math background. The SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) has menus and dialog boxes to achieve many of the same…

Basic Training – Default Constraint

Today, I continuing my series of talks on fundamental SQL Server database topics. I am a proud United States Army Reservist (USAR) Veteran. Just like boot camp I went to so long ago, I am going nick name the series BASIC TRAINING. In my last article, I was talking about how to ADD, ALTER and DROP columns using the ALTER TABLE statement. One problem that we faced was how to add a column with a NOT NULL clause to an existing table that contained data. I will be introducing the…

Basic Training – Columns

Today, I continuing my series of talks on fundamental SQL Server database topics. I am a proud United States Army Reservist (USAR) Veteran. Just like boot camp I went to so long ago, I am going nick name the series BASIC TRAINING. The most basic part of a database is a TABLE which consists of COLUMNS. Many databases are works in progress that never ends since business requirements change as the company ages. With that said, changing the structure of a table is not an uncommon DBA task. We are…

Basic Training – All About NULL

Today, I continuing my series of talks on fundamental SQL Server database topics. I am a proud United States Army Reservist (USAR) Veteran. Just like boot camp I went to so long ago, I am going nick name the series BASIC TRAINING. The most basic part of a database is a TABLE which consists of COLUMNS. After choosing the data type for the COLUMN, we need to decide if the value is optional for some of the data rows. If it is, we need to define the column as NULL,…

Basic Training – Tables

Today, I continuing my series of talks on fundamental SQL Server database topics. I am a proud United States Army Reservist (USAR) Veteran. Just like boot camp I went to so long ago, I am going nick name the series BASIC TRAINING. The most basic part of a database is a TABLE which consists of COLUMNS. A important decision during the initial design is to choose the data types that will capture the information you want in the least amount of space. I did a good job covering the various…

Crafting Databases – Part 4

The ALTER TABLE statement is part of the Data Definition Language (DDL). The statement is used to modify a table after it has been created. Today, I would like to talk about the three integrity concerns that data modelers deal with. Integrity Concerns Entity Data Integrity – Adding primary keys to makes sure rows are unique. Referential Data Integrity – Adding foreign keys to make sure relationships are maintained. Domain Data Integrity – Creating constraints or triggers enforce the range of data values. Again, we will be working with the…

Crafting Databases – Part 3

The CREATE TABLE statement is part of the Data Definition Language (DDL). It is used to define a structure to hold rows of data or tuples if we use Relational Algebra concepts. Each table is defined by a set of fields of a certain data type and precision. Data Types can be categorized as the following. Exact numerics Approximate numerics Character strings Unicode character strings Binary strings Date and time Other data types The power of a database comes from creating user defined datatypes (UDT). Some of the benefits of…