Does anyone know where I can connect to a test SQL box?

I recently lost my job and wanted to do some test development to keep my skills up to date. The problem is I don't have access to any data sources. Is there such a thing around? I tried installing microsoft's trial of SQL 2005 but can't get it to run on my laptop and SQL 2000 trial no longer exists. I simply need to create a SQL db/tables etc. Thanks in advance.

You probably want SQL 2005 Express.

Jeff

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jeff@.zina.com:

You probably want SQL 2005 Express.

Jeff

Thanks. I'll take a look at it.|||

wescosoft:

I recently lost my job and wanted to do some test development to keep my skills up to date. The problem is I don't have access to any data sources. Is there such a thing around? I tried installing microsoft's trial of SQL 2005 but can't get it to run on my laptop and SQL 2000 trial no longer exists. I simply need to create a SQL db/tables etc. Thanks in advance.

An employer will not give you Express for development so it is better to download the eval version which is good for 180 days to use for your development. The product almost self install after you choose components Hope this helps.

http://www.microsoft.com/sql/downloads/trial-software.mspx

|||Odd, my employer gave me Express for development. But we also have production, test, and staging sql servers as well.|||

Motley:

Odd, my employer gave me Express for development. But we also have production, test, and staging sql servers as well.

Most employers give personnal edition which is complete SQL Server for development. Express installs with VS, that does not mean employers give Express for development.

|||

SQL Personal Edition, SQL Desktop, and MSDE are what SQL Express is in 2005. And I've found that employers don't normally give anything, development teams and shops have different methods of development. Most that I deal with use development servers, which are full SQL Server editions that match the deployment servers.

There are limitations to SQL Express, but most shouldn't impede using it for web development.

Jeff

|||

jeff@.zina.com:

SQL Personal Edition, SQL Desktop, and MSDE are what SQL Express is in 2005. And I've found that employers don't normally give anything, development teams and shops have different methods of development. Most that I deal with use development servers, which are full SQL Server editions that match the deployment servers.

There are limitations to SQL Express, but most shouldn't impede using it for web development.

Jeff

Personnal is not MSDE so it is not Express, MSDE is Express and it is not a way to learn data driven web application development because a lot of what you need to run your application are SQL Server Agent dependent and there is no Agent in Express.

|||There is no 2005 Personal Edition, atleast not that I am aware of. Enterprise, Standard, Workgroup, Express, Developer, and I believe there is a Mobile Edition as well. You may be thinking of the Developer Edition which is similiar in fuctionality to Enterprise with some licensing restrictions.|||I did not say there is personnal in SQL Server 2005 but Express is not a replacement for personnal because it was a complete SQL Server. That is the reason I gave the user the eval version.

Does anybody look at the jobs on this site

Poeple are calling me for resume 5 years old. They need DBA's all over the country. Please pass it on to look at the job opportunities on this site.Kindly post your thread in relevent forums, dude. ;-)|||eah...place it in the corral where it belongs...

http://www.dbforums.com/showthread.php?p=3928081#post3928081

And you forgot the link...

Do they need part time help?

Does a Job execute MUCH faster??

Hi,

Previosuly I was executing 2 DTS packages one afte the other manually and together they took a CONSIDERABLE time. The 1st one was pulling data from the OLPT, doing transformations and populating the tables in my Datamart and the 2nd one was doing a FULL process of all the dimensions and cubes.

However I tried scheduling the DTSs as jobs and havethen merged the 2 resulting jobs as a SINGLe job having 2 sequential steps. To my surprise the resulting job takes less than half the time (actually even lesser) as compared with my original approach i.e. running the DTSs.

Am i getting over excited here or is this natural? I assume that if this is correct then jobs much be some sort of "compiled" version as compared to DTS and maybe that's why I have this terrific improvement in terms of execution times.

I'll appreciate comments. ThanksIt's actually a little simpler than that. The same exact set of processes are involved in running your package(-s) interactively or as a scheduled job. The difference lies in the fact that, while being scheduled, the package runs on the server, and any and all output streams are within the "server reach" (in other words nothing leaves the box), running the same package interactively causes every output flag (such as the number of rows processed so far) to be sent to the client.|||Thanks for the reply :)

Documented Bug in SQL Server 2005?

I set up a WMI alert in SQL2K5, which invokes a response launching a job.
The alert is AUDIT_LOGIN_FAILED. The response job is to insert the contents
of the token $(WMI(TextData)) into a table.
The job step text looks like:
INSERT INTO dbo.ddl_event_test_table(event_source, event_data)
VALUES('AUDIT_LOGIN_FAILED', REPLACE('$(WMI(TextData))', '''', ''''''))
The error looks like:
Executed as user: MyDomain\MyServiceAccount. Incorrect syntax near 'bubba'.
[SQLSTATE 42000] (Error 102).
The profile trace looks like:
INSERT INTO dbo.ddl_event_test_table(event_source, event_data)
VALUES('AUDIT_LOGIN_FAILED', REPLACE('Login failed for user 'bubba'.
[CLIENT: <local machine>]', '''', ''''''))
I have tried this with and without a REPLACE. The result is the same. Is
this documented? Is there a workaround?
Thanks for all input.
John T (JohnT@.discussions.microsoft.com) writes:
> I set up a WMI alert in SQL2K5, which invokes a response launching a job.
> The alert is AUDIT_LOGIN_FAILED. The response job is to insert the
> contents of the token $(WMI(TextData)) into a table.
> The job step text looks like:
> INSERT INTO dbo.ddl_event_test_table(event_source, event_data)
> VALUES('AUDIT_LOGIN_FAILED', REPLACE('$(WMI(TextData))', '''', ''''''))
> The error looks like:
> Executed as user: MyDomain\MyServiceAccount. Incorrect syntax near
> 'bubba'. [SQLSTATE 42000] (Error 102).
> The profile trace looks like:
> INSERT INTO dbo.ddl_event_test_table(event_source, event_data)
> VALUES('AUDIT_LOGIN_FAILED', REPLACE('Login failed for user 'bubba'.
> [CLIENT: <local machine>]', '''', ''''''))
> I have tried this with and without a REPLACE. The result is the same. Is
> this documented? Is there a workaround?
Documented? Sort of. On
ms-help://MS.SQLCC.v9/MS.SQLSVR.v9.en/udb9/html/105bbb66-0ade-4b46-b8e4-
f849e5fc4d43.htm
it says:
SQL Server Agent replaces an exact value for the token. Your job steps
must take this into account and correctly quote the tokens you use.
Bug? Certainly quite a serious design flaw in my eyes. There is no way you
can save this situation with replace(). As I understand it, SQL Server
Agent pastes in the value of the token, and it's your job to put that
value in a syntactic correct context. Which is quite an uphill battle in
this case. SQL Server Agent would need to provide to means to expand a
token: as-is and as-string-literal. Say that the syntax for the latter
would be $$(WMI(TextData)). That would expand the string to
N'Executed as user: MyDomain\MyServiceAccount. Incorrect syntax near
''bubba''. [SQLSTATE 42000] (Error 102).'
An alternative would be that ' were not expanded as such but as some
innocent character, for instance `.
The workaround you can employ is to say SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER OFF in
the script. Then you can say:
INSERT INTO dbo.ddl_event_test_table(event_source, event_data)
VALUES('AUDIT_LOGIN_FAILED', "$(WMI(TextData))")
But that would not be waterproof, since you would get the same syntax
error for a message that includs a ".
I would suggest that you submit a bug/suggestion for this on
http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/productfeedback/. If you submit it as
a bug, it may be closed as "By Design". I would not expect this to
be fixed in SQL 2005, as it would be a feature change. Then again,
since there is a potential source for SQL injection here, maybe there
is cause for alarm. Feel free to include to suggestions I've given here
in your submission on the Feedback Centre.
Disclaimer: I have very little experience of working with tokens in
SQL Server Agent, so I may have missed something obvious. (Which is
why I don't want to submit any bug/suggestion myself.)
Erland Sommarskog, SQL Server MVP, esquel@.sommarskog.se
Books Online for SQL Server 2005 at
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/pro...ads/books.mspx
Books Online for SQL Server 2000 at
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodinf...ons/books.mspx

Documentation

What information should I be documenting about a server (SQL) and about the databases found on that server. I was task with this job. Please help.
Thanks
LystraNumber one item would be the 'sa' password if your job is to manage the server. Since SQL Server does not allow you to see passwords, only change
them, this would be the most critical item. Most everything else can be gleaned from looking at the existing database(s) and processes.|||I would document out your backup/recovery/tape backup/disaster recovery as completely as possible.

It's always nice to have as part of your data dicitionary what the general purpose is of each database as well. In addition, I like to keep a "server log" that describles what's on it, when patches were applied, etc. This is all more for management thought than anything else.

Were you given any details about what they're expecting? Your description is rather vague.

Document Job Steps

How can I script out the job steps along with the DTS, Sp or T-SQL code within the step. This info must be stored somewhere. How can I access it?

Hi,

You can script out jobs, including their job steps, by using SQL Server Management Studio. In SQL Server Books Online, see the topic "How to: Script Jobs Using Transact-SQL (SQL Server Management Studio)"

The URL within the Books Online browser is

ms-help://sql90/udb9/html/fd9e6497-87ca-4da8-b194-55c9d5b03cec.htm

Copy and paste this URL into the Books Online browser to locate this topic. As an alternative, you can also search on the topic name.

Let me know if you have any further questions.

Best regards,

Laurel Hale

Document Job Steps

How can I script out the job steps along with the DTS, Sp or T-SQL code within the step. This info must be stored somewhere. How can I access it?

Hi,

You can script out jobs, including their job steps, by using SQL Server Management Studio. In SQL Server Books Online, see the topic "How to: Script Jobs Using Transact-SQL (SQL Server Management Studio)"

The URL within the Books Online browser is

ms-help://sql90/udb9/html/fd9e6497-87ca-4da8-b194-55c9d5b03cec.htm

Copy and paste this URL into the Books Online browser to locate this topic. As an alternative, you can also search on the topic name.

Let me know if you have any further questions.

Best regards,

Laurel Hale