My boss is asking me to find an easy way for the engineers to type in descriptions of entities and fields of a large database (sql server 2008) and I am struggling to understand his requirement. He mentioned there is a way of doing so by "directly inputting descriptions in the schema files in a specific syntax that other software can easily pull out to generate a data dictionary".
He said this is what he did 7 / 8 years ago and it was very easy
I looked on the web, and I showed him how you can use SQL statements to edit the external properties of entities and fields, to which he said it was not what he wanted and that "this is not a convenient or fast way" of doing so.
Does any one know what my boss is talking about? And maybe explain to me what sort of schema file he is talking about?
I don't know of any way that has ever existed for SQL Server other than sp_addextendedproperty when it comes to schema definition. In Enterprise Manager, it used to be a little more obvious how to enter in descriptions. In Management Studio, it's really non obvious. You can do it a little easier if you create a database diagram, then edit the custom view of the tables and add the description column to the view. You could also use a tool like http://www.sqldatadictionary.com to quickly edit many descriptions.
Related
I am recreating an old database that's in MS Access with company data, contacts, conventions etc. but I have never done something like this. In the past few days I learnt to use MS Access and started recreating the tables to fit third form, creating table relationships etc.
But I got stuck when I started searching for a program/programs that could help me create an easy to use visual input form like in MS Access sparing me from having to delve into SQL and HTML.
I am not a native english-speaker so I couldn't really word what I wanted sufficient enough to find related google hits, I have found applications like Aptana Studio, Heidi SQL, Dreamweaver and so on. My question is, is there a program where I can manage the tables inside the database, create forms to input data with, all (if possible) wih a drag-and-drop designer?
I would be grateful for any number guides you guys have links for, because I just couldn't find what I wanted (possibly because of my still lacking programming expertise). Any guides touching on the topic of how to create input sites with HTML/CSS for an SQL database would also helpful if it's not possible to do without using these languages.
Thank you in advance.
Visual Studio, with SQL Server, has all of the features that you are asking for. There are free versions of both, but with limitations.
You can also use a Java and MySQL solution. To manage the database, use MySQL Workbench. For an IDE that has a drag-and-drop designer, use either NetBeans or Eclipse. For more information on either, google "Netbeans form designer" or "Eclipse form designer."
For creating and managing databases you can use the "Sql Server management studio" itself.
If you have MS office, you can use "InfoPath" to create forms and connect them to the Sql Server database. Check this link out which shows how to do it :
https://www.mssqltips.com/sqlservertip/4246/data-entry-for-sql-server--building-quick-efficient-data-input-forms-using-infopath/
Is there any good way to migrate existing database from Domino Server to Relational database like MySQL without using any tool.
I've explored a bit about this and got to know that its possible using XML but don't know how and what'll be the procedure.
Any help would be appreciated.
Without using any tool: NO.
There are two big difficulties in exporting data:
First is the Notes Richtext, which is a proprietary format that has to be "transcoded" somehow. This is not an easy thing to do "manually" and needs either a lot of coding or some kind of tool.
Second is the fact, that there is no "forced" structure in Notes documents. There can be several forms that "define" how the documents look and there can be different versions of these forms that have been used over the past. A document may or may not contain any number of fields in any thinkable type (the field may even be number in one document and text in the other).
You have to KNOW the structure of your documents to get them out. Of course you can simply export them as "Structured Text" or as "Comma separated values", to get -most- of it, but then you need views that show the documents in the order you need them. Exporting them as XML is another "standard" way to get the data, but then you need to understand the xml to get it into your relational database.
Short: Without (at least very little) coding knowledge OR a tool (that costs money) there is no chance for getting the data out.
Ah yes, there is an "ODBC driver" for Lotus Notes / Domino, but that will not help you much, if you do not know the structure of your documents and how Notes- Databases work, it will also not work.
As Torsten said above, you can't do it without a tool, either you buy one or write one yourself.
I wrote a tool like that several years ago to export Notes databases as XML. There is a bit of work, especially with the rich text fields. You also may want to export/detach attachments and embedded images.
You can read more about my export tool here: http://www.texasswede.com/websites/texasswede.nsf/Page/Notes%20XML%20Exporter
I was given a task to have a better understanding of several ETL packages that were created in a Database project using Business Intelligence Development Studio(SQL 2005).
Currently I have to open each master package, package and then data flow and so on to discover the relationships that exists with either the source tables and the destination tables.
I realized that probably a good way to more easily get that information would be having a tool similar to what SchemaSpy does with a normal Database. That would provide my a high level detail of the relationships that exist.
Anyone knows an application/script that could help me achieving this result?
I tried to search, but I must admit that I was getting the feeling that I wasn't really searching in the right direction as most of my searches ended up pointing for database comparisons.
Turned out, the only way I found to do this was to parse the xml inside the packages and extract the relationships. And then using Graphviz (the same visual component used by schema spy) create the diagrams.
Unfortunately this was an expensive thing to do and I never finished the project. Mainly due to lack of knowledge around the xml structure but it is definitely possible to be achieved
We are embarking upon a Legacy Data Migration project, and in the process of understanding our source database better, we are trying to build a db model out of it.
We dont have any information about the Primary/foreign keys in the db. We are still mining the COBOL code to understand the business better.
However, in our quest to build the db model, we are trying to see if tools like ErWin or PowerDesigner or others can help us "guess" the relationships based on column names etc. I have the community edition downloaded, and trying the reverse engineering process to see if we can get some worthwhile output, before I go and ask my manager to requisition the purchase of the tool.
So far, I have not got any success with that. Tried the option wherein it asks about finding relationships using Index / Name, chose name there, but nothing so far.
Could it be that its possible, but I am missing something ?
Is it altogether possible to guess the relationships based on column names ?
Can any other tool do this job ??
Any help is appreciated...
You should be able to reverse engineer from the DB2 table directly into ERWIN.
You only need a connection to DB2 or get the z/Os dba to provide you with the DDL.
I do not think guessing the relationships is a very good idea when all the information you need is in the DB2 catalog tables. Talk to you DBA.
Can you provide some more information / examples. In Cobol there is often a naming convention
(e.g. A Table-Id is included in field names at the start / end of the field name) in which
case
T1234_Product_code
is equivalent to
T1323_Product_ID
T1245_Product_Code
I suggest investigating (if you have not already) any naming convention.
After looking at a lot of questions..i found no real answer for this.
I redisigned an Database for our customer.
With Microsoft Access i found a good Tool to get old table Data in my new well formed Database Structure. It is really easy but takes a lot of time (cause handling old Data with a lot of care).
Are there any Open Source Tools that bring that facilities like Microsoft Access?
To clear it up: I "just" want to reorder old Firebird Database Data in a new "best-practise" Way.
Edit:
I would be really nice if i can get a Log File or something similar to have some documentation on the changes.
Update:
After checking some of the Tools of that Wikipedia Site. I found no real Logging Mechanism.
How do you documentate the changes on a Database? Simply by writing it down?
Result:
So i dont got an real answer...i ma still searching for an nice tool. thnak you guys for the hints and your thoughts regarding this question. I want to reward Kenneth Cochran with the Bounty cause he pointed me to ETL. Thank you!
Talend's Open Source ETL supports FireBird. Very cool tool.
http://www.talend.com/download.php?src=DataGovernanceBlog
It sounds like what you're asking for is an ETL(extract, transform, load) tool.
Wikipedia has a list of open source tools that may help with this. I've not used any of them personally.
Well, I used the Pentaho suite for doing ETL using their Kettle tool.
It's quite easy to use and should be more than enough to reach your intent.
And it's open source.
Give a look at it.
I advice you to use a tool like IBExpert or Database Workbench which are the best tools for Firebird.
For migrating Firebird 1.5 to Firebird 2.1 : you just have to make a backup of your database with Firebird 1.5 server and restore your database with Firebird 2.1 server
I've used Excel in the past to document data model changes - each worksheet used the application version in order to sync with our tags in CVS. Every thing was logged in it - columns that were removed as well as minor alterations to datatypes like varchar(10) to varchar(20) etc along with a note describing why the change was made.
Personally, I've only ever scripted things like these as DDL/DML scripts broken into a script that dealt with table creation, constraint dropping, index drops, DML script(s), constraint application, index application, and removing orphaned tables.
If you want a basic ETL tool, that is client based (and cheap at $300), look at Advanced Query Tool. It mainly queries any type of ODBC connection(including Excel files set up that way), but also has some extended features, including moving data. And has a command line interface. http://www.querytool.com/
I've used it instead of Informatica for one-off jobs, but I've also used to extract from Excel to another file for business users, for a few months, scheduled from my desktop.