Data Migration Assistant - Cross-database queries - azure-sql-database

I am running an assessment using the Azure SQL Data Migration Assistant (3.4.3948.1). In my initial assessment, I had a function that was calling fn_varbintohexstr so I fixed it (read removed the function). I also deleted all our synonyms.
Now I run the assessment more times and it continues to give the 'cross-database queries' error but without listing any more specifics. How can I find out what particular objects it means? Or is it possible that it has somehow cached my result and I need to invalidate it somehow?

This means you have programming objects in that database that reference another database. For example a query like this:
SELECT * FROM Database1.dbo.Table1
One of the options you have is to import those external objects to your database and change the three and four-part name references that SQL Azure does not support.
You can also use CREATE EXTERNAL DATA SOURCE and CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE on SQL Azure to query tables that belong to other databases that you have to migrate to SQL Azure too.

Related

SQL Server: Create a duplicate of a database without the data

I have a database called AQOA_Core with huge amount of data.
I have a newly created database called AQOA_Core1 which is basically empty. I want to write a query to duplicate AQOA_Core to AQOA_Core1 without the data. I guess to be precise I want to create a skeleton of the primary database into the secondary database.
PS: I use Toad for my database operations.
You can use SQL Server Script Wizard for scripting database objects. You can exclude data, and select the database object types you want to include in your script
Please check the SQL Server guide I referenced above,
I hope it helps you

How to query a table to a view and publish to a different database

I have 13 SQL databases some 2005 others 2008, on a VPN. I'd like to take all of the data from the "Employees" table on each database and make it a view at each location. I would then like to publish these views to 1 database on another server, all in one table marking where each came from within the origninal databases. For example the database where all the information goes to would look like this:
User Name Location
bik Bob K 1
JS John S 2
Etc.
Any help is appreciated.
I assume you want the data on the final server to be viewable, but not modifiable, and to reflect changes made to the source databases?
This would probably not perform all that well, but one do-it-yourself-way to do it would be the following (disclaimer: I haven't tried doing this myself):
Set up all the source servers as linked servers on the final server.
Create a view in this form:
SELECT *, 1 as Location
FROM [Linked Server 1].Database1.dbo.Table1
UNION ALL
SELECT *, 2 as Location
FROM [Linked Server 2].Database2.dbo.Table2
... etc ....
You might want to read this documentation on distributed queries, if you haven't already.
I believe it's also possible to use SSIS as the source of a distributed query, but a quick scan through the documentation didn't find anything about it. I mention that because SSIS would make pulling and transforming data from disaparate data sources very easy, and if you could use the final recordset as a data source, you could use an SSIS package as the backend to your view. However, again, performance would probably require considerable tuning.
If the queries don't have to be real time you could look into using SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) to pull in the data to a local DB. you could schedule the job to run hourly/daily/weekly..

Sql: export database using TSQL

I have database connection to database DB1. The only thing I could do - execute any t-sql statements including using stored procedures. I want to export the specific table (or even the specific rows of specific table) to my local database. As you can read abve, DBs are on diffrent servers meaning no direct connection is possible. Therefore question: Is it possible to write query that returns the other query to execute on local server and get data? Also note, that table contains BLOBs. Thanks.
If you have SQL Server Management Studio, you can use the data import function on your local database to get the data. It works as long as you have Read/Select access on the tables you are trying to copy.
If you have Visual Studio you can use the database tools in there to move data between two servers as long as you can connect to both from your workstation.
Needs Ultimate or Premium though:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd193261.aspx
RedGate has some usefull tools too:
http://www.red-gate.com/products/sql-development/sql-compare/features
Maybe you should ask at https://dba.stackexchange.com/ instead.
If you can login to the remote db (where you can only issue t-sql), you may create linked server on your local server to the remote and use it later directly in queries, like:
select * from [LinkedServerName].[DatabaseName].[SchemaName].[TableName]

SQL Azure - copy table between databases

I am trying to run following SQL:
INSERT INTO Suppliers ( [SupplierID], [CompanyName])
Select [SupplierID], [CompanyName] From [AlexDB]..Suppliers
and got an error "reference to database and/or server name in is not supported in this version of sql server"
Any idea how to copy data between databases "inside" the server?
I can load data to client and then back to server, but this is very slow.
I know this is old, but I had another manual solution for a one off run.
Using SQL Management Studio R2 SP1 to connect to azure, I right click the source database and select generate scripts.
during the wizard, after I have selected my tables I select that I want to output to a query window, then I click advanced. About half way down the properties window
there is an option for "type of data to script". I select that and change it to "data only", then I finish the wizard.
All I do then is check the script, rearrange the inserts for constraints, and change the using at the top to run it against my target DB.
Then I right click on the target database and select new query, copy the script into it, and run it.
Done, Data migrated.
Since 2015, this can be done by use of elastic database queries also known as cross database queries.
I created and used this template, it copies 1.5 million rows in 20 minutes:
CREATE MASTER KEY ENCRYPTION BY PASSWORD = '<password>';
CREATE DATABASE SCOPED CREDENTIAL SQL_Credential
WITH IDENTITY = '<username>',
SECRET = '<password>';
CREATE EXTERNAL DATA SOURCE RemoteReferenceData
WITH
(
TYPE=RDBMS,
LOCATION='<server>.database.windows.net',
DATABASE_NAME='<db>',
CREDENTIAL= SQL_Credential
);
CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE [dbo].[source_table] (
[Id] BIGINT NOT NULL,
...
)
WITH
(
DATA_SOURCE = RemoteReferenceData
)
SELECT *
INTO target_table
FROM source_table
Unfortunately there is no way to do this in a single query.
The easiest way to accomplish it is to use "Data Sync" to copy the tables. The benefit of this is that it will also work between servers, and keep your tables in sync.
http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/sql-database-get-started-sql-data-sync/
In practise, I haven't had that great of an experience with "Data Sync" running in production, but its fine for once off jobs.
One issue with "Data Sync" is that it will create a large number of "sync" objects in your database, and deleting the actual "Data Sync" from the Azure portal may or may not clean them up. Follow the directions in this article to clean it all up manually:
https://msgooroo.com/GoorooTHINK/Article/15141/Removing-SQL-Azure-Sync-objects-manually/5215
SQL-Azure does not support USE statement and effectively no cross-db queries. So the above query is bound to fail.
If you want to copy/backup the db to another sql azure db you can use the "Same-server" copying or "Cross-Server" copying in SQL-Azure. Refer this msdn article
You could use a tool like SQL Data Compare from Red Gate Software that can move database contents from one place to another and fully supports SQL Azure. 14-day free trial should let you see if it can do what you need.
Full disclosure: I work for Red Gate Software
An old post, but another option is the Sql Azure Migration wizard
Use the following steps, there is no straight forward way to do so. But by some trick we can.
Step1 : Create another one table with the same structure of Suppliers table inside [AlexDB], Say it as SuppliersBackup
Step2 : Create table with the same structure of Suppliers table inside DesiredDB
Step3 : Enable Data Sync Between AlexDB..Suppliers and DesiredDB..Suppliers
Step4 : Truncate data from AlexDB..Suppliers
Step5 : Copy data from AlexDB..SuppliersBackup to AlexDB..Suppliers
Step6 : Now run the sync
Data Copied to DesiredDB.
If you have onprem version that has the sp_addlinkedsrvlogin, you can setup Linked Servers for both source and target database then you can run your insert into query.
See "SQL Server Support for Linked Server and Distributed Queries against Windows Azure SQL Database" in this blog: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/announcing-updates-to-windows-azure-sql-database/
Ok, i think i found answer - no way. have to move data to client, or do some other tricks. Here a link to article with explanations: Limitations of SQL Azure: only one DB per connection
But any other ideas are welcome!
You can easily add a "Linked Server" from SQL Management Studio and then query on the fully qualified table name. No need for flat files or export tables. This method also works for on-prem to azure database and vice versa.
e.g.
select top 1 ColA, ColB from [AZURE01_<hidden>].<hidden>_UAT_RecoveryTestSrc.dbo.FooTable order by 1 desc
select top 1 ColA, ColB from [AZURE01_<hidden>].<hidden>_UAT_RecoveryTestTgt.dbo.FooTable order by 1 desc
A few options (rather workarounds):
Generate script with data
Use data sync in Azure
Use MS Access (import and then export), with many exclusions (like no GUID in Access)
Use 3-rd party tools like Red Gate.
Unfortunately no easy and built-in way to do that so far.
I would recommend SSMS SQL Server Import and Export feature. This feature supports multiple connection configurations and cross-server copy of selected tables. I have tried .NET Sql Server connector, which works very well for the Azure SQL databases.

How do you transfer all tables between databases using SQL Management Studio?

When I right click on the database I want to export data from, I only get to select a single table or view, rather than being able to export all of the data. Is there a way to export all of the data?
If this is not possible, could you advise on how I could do the following:
I have two databases, with the same table names, but one has more data than the other
They both have different database names (Table names are identical)
They are both on different servers
I need to get all of the additional data from the larger database, into the smaller database.
Both are MS SQL databases
Being that both are MS SQL Servers, on different hosts... why bother with CSV when you can setup a Linked Server instance so you can access one instance from the other via a SQL statement?
Make sure you have a valid user on the instance you want to retrieve data from - it must have access to the table(s)
Create the Linked Server instance
Reference the name in queries using four name syntax:
INSERT INTO db1.dbo.SmallerTable
SELECT *
FROM linked_server.db.dbo.LargerTable lt
WHERE NOT EXISTS(SELECT NULL
FROM db1.dbo.SmallerTable st
WHERE st.col = lt.col)
Replace WHERE st.col = lt.col with whatever criteria you consider to be duplicate values between the two tables.
There is also a very good tool by Redgate software that syncs data between two databases.
I've also used SQL scripter before to generate a SQL file with insert statements that you can run on the other database to insert the data.
If you right-click on the database, under the Tasks menu, you can use the Generate Scripts option to produce SQL scripts for all the tables and data. See this blog post for details. If you want to sync the second database with the first, then you're better off using something like Redgate as suggested in mpenrow's answer.