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…
Tag: BCP
Basic Training – Data Types – Part 6
I am continuing my series of talks on fundamental topics like data types. I am proud to be a 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 unit of any database is a TABLE which consists of COLUMNS. A vital decision during the initial database design is to choose the data types that will capture the information you want in the least amount of space. Today, I am exploring binary…
Import & Export Data – Part 4
The BCP command line utility is the Cadillac of ETL programs for text based data files. It is REALLY FAST. It can perform data imports, data exports and generate format files. What it lacks in the transformation step can be crafted with custom TSQL. Today, I am going to concentrate on how BCP can be used to export data to text files. The format of the output text files can be either character, native, or unicode. A quick demonstration of how to create character and xml format files will also…
Import & Export Data – Part 3
The BCP command line utility is the Cadillac of ETL programs for text based data files. It is REALLY FAST. It can perform both imports and exports and it can generate format files from existing objects. Today, I am going implement the same business algorithms I did earlier (Part 2) using the BCP program instead of BULK INSERT. We will be working again with the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) hypothetical database. I will be using the xp_cmdshell to execute BCP from a query window inside of SQL Server Management…