The ODBC standard was developed in the early 1990’s to allow a software developer to use a single interface to access mutltiple data sources. Microsoft Access is a very versatile application since it can import or link to a variety of ODBC data sources. Today’s article will cover how to define a new ODBC connection. I will be using the [WILD LIFE] database that was created in a earlier article. First step is to open to the administrator tools on the windows operating system. You can find this group under…
Tag: free code
Renaming A Server
I was recently approached by the WINTEL to help rename a Windows 2003 Server that has Symantec Backup Exec 12.5. This backup software uses the Express Version of SQL Server 2005 to manage information about backups, restores, and schedules. Since I have not done this task in a while, I wanted to write down the steps for future requests. The first task is to connect to the Express Version of SQL Server 2005 via my locally installed SQL Server Management Studio tool. This can be accomplished by using the following…
Various Triggers – Part 1
I am going to wrap up my discussion of LOGON TRIGGERS. The number and types of database triggers available to database administrators has increased over the years as the Microsoft SQL Server database engine has matured. There are now triggers for execution after both DDL and DML modifications. These triggers can be classified as AFTER – TSQL code to be executed after an action or INSTEAD OF – TSQL code to be executed in lue of a action. Triggers are commonly used in following tasks: Auditing data changes by place…
Database Files – Part 3
DATABASE SNAPSHOTS were added to the SQL Server product in the 2005 version. They are great for saving a version of the database before major data changes happen and perfect for rolling back the changes if they are not successful. While books online suggest other uses, I think this one is the best. Please see the limitations of snapshots before creating one. I am going to explain how to create a database snapshot, how to revert back to a snapshot after corrupted occurs, and how to drop a database snapshot.…
Database Files – Part 2
The most basic Microsoft SQL Server database is composed of two operating system files: a primary data file and a transaction log file. If possible, the data and log files should be on different physical disks. Today, I am going to be re-creating the [WILDLIFE] database using this simple design in preparation for talking about MOVING and COPYING database files. The key CREATE DATABASE, CREATE TABLE and CREATE INDEX statements are below. The complete script which catalogs ANIMAL names is enclosed as well as today’s new examples. If you have…
Database Files – Part 1
A Microsoft SQL Server database is composed of at least two operating system files: a primary data file and a transaction log file. I am going to be talking about how to define databases with multiple files tonight. There are three types of operating system files. PRIMARY data file is the starting point of the database and is a pointer to any other data files that are allocated. A extension of .mdf is used to identify these files. This data file can contains system tables and user defined objects as…
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…
Full Text Search – Part 3
Tonight, I want to revisit the [WILD LIFE] database that we were using last time. The main goal is to correctly search the [ANIMALS] table returning all [NAME]’s that contain the word fly. We want the query plan associated with our query to use a index to speed up overall execution time. The first solution to this business problem resulted in FULL TABLE SCANS or CLUSTERED INDEX SCANS. Please see the desciptions of graphical icons that can show up in a query plan. Since every record in the table has…
Full-Text Search – Part 2
I want to revisit the [WILD LIFE] database that we were using last time. First goal is to create a full text index (FTI) using the SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) graphical user interface (GUI). Second goal is to have our SELECT query perform a INDEX SEEK using the FTI. We have the existing [ANIMALS] table with a identity column called [ID] and a data column called [NAME] which is loaded with 445 animals names that I grabbed from WIKIPEDIA. The idea is to search for animals that have ‘fly’…
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…