How can I do a SQL JOIN on two Azure IMobileServiceSyncTables? - sql

I have a Xamarin Forms App that uses Azure Mobile Services offline sync. I want to use a Join to query two tables, but it looks like the use of JOIN isn't supported on IMobileServiceSyncTables. Can I use a regular SQL query? For a single-table query, I'm doing the following:
IEnumerable<Job> jobs = await jobTable
.Where(job => job.JobPackId == jobPackId)
.ToEnumerableAsync();
I can join the Job table to the JobPack table on job.JobPackID == JobPack.Id.
My workaround at the moment is to get all the jobs from the above query, then for each job, query the JobPack table for the item I want. But I don't think it's very efficient, so looking for a better way of doing it.

Can I use a regular SQL query?
AFAIK, you could not use the join query when using IMobileServiceSyncTables and you could not write your own SQL query. Per my understanding, you are using Azure Mobile Services offline sync, you could not achieve your purpose via a single table query. For querying all records from your Job table and the relevant JobPack record, you need to retrieve your expected records with two queries. Or you could install the SQLite client library and write your own SQL query for join operation. Here is a similar issue. Moreover, you could add your feature request here.

Related

SQL Server Query to oracle

We have developed a set of operational reports long back ago based on the SQL server , Currently we have added a third party source which has Oracle as source and we need to modify our existing SQL queries to pull the partial data from oracle as well. The tricky part of the requirement is we have different table from different source belong to single query
for example
SELECT A.ID , B.Name
FROM A --Belong to SQL server
INNER JOIN B --Belong to Oracle server
On A.id=B.id
I know we can have a linked server facility in SQL which allows us to grab the table B in some temp table and then join the SQL table with the temp table.
I just want to know is there any better approach to accomplish this as this would be very difficult to deal with the complex queries in case of this , Specially the sub queries and recursive queries.
Is creating a staging table with all required field from oracle and then use it in queries makes sense? as we are dealing with the operational data (though in most of the cases it is 1 day old,So we can do this).
We are using SSIS,SSRS and SQL serer 2008 R2 as development environment.
Thanks.

How can I perform the SQL query against different database systems?

I have a question about how to perform database queries against different database systems?
For example, I have a following SQL query string:
SELECT A.F1, A.F2, B.F3, B.F4
FROM TableA A, TableB B
WHERE A.ID=B.ID AND B.ID=xyz
Is there any solution that I can perform the above query when:
TableA is from an Oracle database, TableB is also from an Oracle database from another instance
TableA is from a SQL Server database, TableB is from an Oracle database
TableA is from an Oracle database, TableB is from a SQL Server database
TableA is from a SQL Server database, TableB is also from a SQL Server database from another SQL Server instance
I know that for situation #1 I can use the ORACLE DATABASE LINK feature (also maybe #3). But is there any common solution which can address all of the scenarios above? For instance, maybe there is another scenario that I want to join two tables from MySQL and SQL Server databases.
For coding I am using C#/.NET, any recommendation is welcome, including joining the data in the code.
Thanks!
This is known as a federated query
You can use SQL Servers federation ability (linked servers) and run the query in SQL Server. You can use Oracles federation ability (Oracle heterogeneous services) and run the query in Oracle.
Either way you need to pick a database server, make the other (foreign) database known to that server then execute the query on the server.
Keep in mind you cannot expect good performance from this as in most cases the executing server is loading all the source records locally and joining locally.
Otherwise you need to write your own 'federation' ability in your app. This is non trivial, i.e. data types don't match exactly between vendors so you need to build some smarts. Also if you are joining particularly large tables you'd better make sure your algorithm is optimised or you'll run our of memory. Further to this, federated query ability in existing products (SQL, Oracle, Cognos etc.) is the result of very large companies doing a lot of development.
Can you tell us how many records you expect to join, and are the various source database servers mostly fixed or is this for an ad hoc query tool?

Access slow when joining on Teradata SQL connections?

I have a simple Access database I use to create a number of reports. I've linked to a Teradata database server in our organization to pull some additional employee-level details. There is a simple left join on employee number, and all I pull is the name and the role.
The query without the connect takes maybe a minute or so to run and is very quick once loaded. Left joining on the Teradata connection slows everything down to a crawl. It can take 10 minutes or so to run the query through Excel. When the query is loaded in Access, scrolling through it is very slow.
I should note there's no performance issues with the Teradata server. I pull unrelated reports from the same and different tables, with complex joins and the speed is very quick.
I tried creating an even simpler query that does almost noting, and the performance issues are still there. Here is the code:
SELECT EMPL_DETAILS_CURR.NM_PREFX, EMPL_DETAILS_CURR.NM_GIVEN,
MC.DT_APP_ENTRY, MC.CHANNEL_IND
FROM MC LEFT JOIN EMPL_DETAILS_CURR ON MC.EMP_ID = EMPL_DETAILS_CURR.EMP_ID;
There are only 7000 records in MC.
If you are joining data between MS Access tables and Teradata tables the join has to be completed using the Microsoft JET Engine on your local machine. That means the data that exists in your Teradata tables is being brought down to your local machine to so that it can be joined.
If the tables are all on Teradata and accessed via linked tables in MS Access the join may still be occurring locally. I would suggest running the query as an ODBC Direct (I forget the exact term) query so that the SQL is passed on to Teradata to be executed and the results returned to MS Access when the query completes.

SQL Server 2008, Sybase - large select queries over low bandwidth

I need to pull a large amount of data from various tables across a line that has very low bandwidth. I need to minimize the amount of data that gets sent too and fro.
On that side is a Sybase database, on this side SQL Server 2008.
What I need is to pull all the tables from the Sybase database that have to do with this office. Lets say I have the following tables as an example:
Farm
Tree
Branch
etc.
(one farm has many trees, one tree has many branches etc.)
Lets say the "Farm" table has a field called "CountryID", and I only want the data for where CountryID=12. The actual table structures I am looking at are very complex (and I am also not very familiar with them) so I want to try to keep the queries simple.
So I am thinking of setting up a series of views:
CREATE VIEW vw_Farm AS
SELECT * from Farm where CountryID=12
CREATE VIEW vw_Tree AS
SELECT * from Tree where FarmID in (SELECT FarmID FROM vw_Farm)
CREATE VIEW vw_Branch AS
SELECT * from Tree where BranchID in (SELECT BranchID FROM vw_Branch)
etc.
To then pull the actual data across I would then do:
SELECT * from vw_Farm into localDb.Farm
SELECT * from vw_Tree into localDb.Tree
SELECT * from vw_Branch into localDb.Branch
etc.
Simple enough to set up. I am wondering how this will perform though? Will it perform all the SELECT statements on the Sybase side and then just send back the result? Also, since this will be an iterative process, is it possible to index the views for subsequent calls?
Any other optimisation suggestions would also be welcome!
Thanks
Karl
EDIT: Just to clarify, the views will be set up in SQL Server. I am using a linked server using Sybase ASE to set up those views. What is worrying me in particular is whether the fact that the view is in SQL Server on this side and not on Sybase on that side will mean that for each iteration the data from the preceeing view will get pulled across to SQL Server first before the calculations get executed. I want Sybase to do all the calcs and just pass the results across.
It's difficult to be certain without testing, but my somewhat-relevant experience (using linked servers to platforms other than Sybase, and on SQL Server 2005) has been that using subqueries (such as your code for vw_Tree and vw_Branch) more or less guarantees that SQL Server will pull all the data for the outer table into a local temp table, then match it to the results of the inner query.
The problem is that SQL Server has no access to the linked server's table statistics, so can make no meaningful decisions about how to optimise the query.
If you want to be sure to have the work done on the Sybase server, your best bet will be to write code (could be views or stored procedures) on the Sybase side and reference them from SQL Server.
Linked server connections are, in my experience, not particularly resilient over flaky networks. If it's available, you could consider using Integration Services rather than linked-server queries - but even that may not be much better. You may need to consider falling back on moving text files with robocopy and bcp.

Join in linked server or join in host server?

Here's the situation: we have an Oracle database we need to connect to to pull some data. Since getting access to said Oracle database is a real pain (mainly a bureaucratic obstacle more than anything else), we're just planning on linking it to our SQL Server and using the link to access data as we need it.
For one of our applications, we're planning on making a view to get the data we need. Now the data we need is joined from two tables. If we do this, which would be preferable?
This (in pseudo-SQL if such a thing exists):
OPENQUERY(Oracle, "SELECT [cols] FROM table1 INNER JOIN table2")
or this:
SELECT [cols] FROM OPENQUERY(Oracle, "SELECT [cols1] FROM table1")
INNER JOIN OPENQUERY(Oracle, "SELECT [cols2] from table2")
Is there any reason to prefer one over the other? One thing to keep in mind: we are on a limitation on how long the query can run to access the Oracle server.
I'd go with your first option especially if your query contains a where clause to select a sub-set of the data in the tables.
It will require less work on both servers, assuming there are indices on the tables in the Oracle server that support the join operation.
If the inner join significantly reduces the total number of rows, then option 1 will result in much less network traffic (since you won't have all the rows from table1 having to go across the db link
What hamishmcn said applies.
Also, SQL Server doesn't really know anything about the indexes or statistics or cache kept by the oracle server. Therefore, the oracle server can probably do a much more efficient job with the join than the sql server can.