Creation of reporting database

We have a production database, but due to the crippling load of some
reporting tools, we are looking to have a separate reporting database.
Due to it's nature, the reporting database doesn't need to be as up
to date as the master, perhaps it could be refreshed every evening?
What I wish to know is the best way to go about this. Replicating a
whole database seems excessive as there are 7000+ tables and we don't
need it so closely matching the production database. Log shipping
also seems out as we need the reporting database to be highly
available and if we keep applying transaction logs ever 15 minutes or
so, we need to kick all the users out.
Is there a way of scripting or automatically getting SQL Server 2k to
copy over the last full backup it did and apply this to another
server? Also if we used this method, what would happen to the users
stored in the database? Would I have to keep re-adding them after the
upgrade?
Is there a better way to tackle this problem? All help gratefully
received. We are running SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition on a
Windows 2000 Server machine.
Thanks.Jonathan
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q314546#9 -- Move
Databases between computers running by sql server
"Jonathan" <nielsonj1976@.yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:9db42c2b.0310200347.50044387@.posting.google.com...
> We have a production database, but due to the crippling load of some
> reporting tools, we are looking to have a separate reporting database.
> Due to it's nature, the reporting database doesn't need to be as up
> to date as the master, perhaps it could be refreshed every evening?
> What I wish to know is the best way to go about this. Replicating a
> whole database seems excessive as there are 7000+ tables and we don't
> need it so closely matching the production database. Log shipping
> also seems out as we need the reporting database to be highly
> available and if we keep applying transaction logs ever 15 minutes or
> so, we need to kick all the users out.
> Is there a way of scripting or automatically getting SQL Server 2k to
> copy over the last full backup it did and apply this to another
> server? Also if we used this method, what would happen to the users
> stored in the database? Would I have to keep re-adding them after the
> upgrade?
> Is there a better way to tackle this problem? All help gratefully
> received. We are running SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition on a
> Windows 2000 Server machine.
> Thanks.|||Personally I would
1. Identify the tables that you need to report on.
2. Take them over to the reporting server
3. Create triggers on your Source tables and have them capture the data
that is entered, updated or deleted in those tables to a seperate table.
4. Build a DTS package that is fired by the SQL Server Agent every night
that will pick up those changes and migrate them to your reporting server.
This means that you are only taking across the things you need to. Using
the backup and restore method is easy but you will need to possibly unorphan
logins and also even if nothing changes during the day you are still going
to take across the whole database whereas in the other method you wouldn't.
Just my £0.02
--
--
Allan Mitchell (Microsoft SQL Server MVP)
MCSE,MCDBA
www.SQLDTS.com
I support PASS - the definitive, global community
for SQL Server professionals - http://www.sqlpass.org
"Jonathan" <nielsonj1976@.yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:9db42c2b.0310200347.50044387@.posting.google.com...
> We have a production database, but due to the crippling load of some
> reporting tools, we are looking to have a separate reporting database.
> Due to it's nature, the reporting database doesn't need to be as up
> to date as the master, perhaps it could be refreshed every evening?
> What I wish to know is the best way to go about this. Replicating a
> whole database seems excessive as there are 7000+ tables and we don't
> need it so closely matching the production database. Log shipping
> also seems out as we need the reporting database to be highly
> available and if we keep applying transaction logs ever 15 minutes or
> so, we need to kick all the users out.
> Is there a way of scripting or automatically getting SQL Server 2k to
> copy over the last full backup it did and apply this to another
> server? Also if we used this method, what would happen to the users
> stored in the database? Would I have to keep re-adding them after the
> upgrade?
> Is there a better way to tackle this problem? All help gratefully
> received. We are running SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition on a
> Windows 2000 Server machine.
> Thanks.|||Jonathan (nielsonj1976@.yahoo.co.uk) writes:
> We have a production database, but due to the crippling load of some
> reporting tools, we are looking to have a separate reporting database.
> Due to it's nature, the reporting database doesn't need to be as up
> to date as the master, perhaps it could be refreshed every evening?
> What I wish to know is the best way to go about this. Replicating a
> whole database seems excessive as there are 7000+ tables and we don't
> need it so closely matching the production database. Log shipping
> also seems out as we need the reporting database to be highly
> available and if we keep applying transaction logs ever 15 minutes or
> so, we need to kick all the users out.
If you only need a daily refresh, there is no reason to apply logs
every 15 minutes. Once a day would do.
Of course with that low frequency, moving the entire database may
be a more palatable task. As Allan pointed out, you need to fix
users and login each time then, whereas with log shipping you would
only need to cater for new users.
> Is there a way of scripting or automatically getting SQL Server 2k to
> copy over the last full backup it did and apply this to another
> server?
Yes, you use the RESTORE and BACKUP commands. Read about them in Books
Online. And then you need to use some COPY command in the command-line
world to copy the backup file as it is not adviceable to backup or
restore from a network device. All this can be handled in a job from
SQL Agent.
--
Erland Sommarskog, SQL Server MVP, sommar@.algonet.se
Books Online for SQL Server SP3 at
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/techinfo/productdoc/2000/books.asp

Creation of reporting database

We have a production database, but due to the crippling load of some
reporting tools, we are looking to have a separate reporting database.
Due to it's nature, the reporting database doesn't need to be as up
to date as the master, perhaps it could be refreshed every evening?

What I wish to know is the best way to go about this. Replicating a
whole database seems excessive as there are 7000+ tables and we don't
need it so closely matching the production database. Log shipping
also seems out as we need the reporting database to be highly
available and if we keep applying transaction logs ever 15 minutes or
so, we need to kick all the users out.

Is there a way of scripting or automatically getting SQL Server 2k to
copy over the last full backup it did and apply this to another
server? Also if we used this method, what would happen to the users
stored in the database? Would I have to keep re-adding them after the
upgrade?

Is there a better way to tackle this problem? All help gratefully
received. We are running SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition on a
Windows 2000 Server machine.

Thanks.Jonathan

http://support.microsoft.com/defaul...en-us;Q314546#9 -- Move
Databases between computers running by sql server

"Jonathan" <nielsonj1976@.yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:9db42c2b.0310200347.50044387@.posting.google.c om...
> We have a production database, but due to the crippling load of some
> reporting tools, we are looking to have a separate reporting database.
> Due to it's nature, the reporting database doesn't need to be as up
> to date as the master, perhaps it could be refreshed every evening?
> What I wish to know is the best way to go about this. Replicating a
> whole database seems excessive as there are 7000+ tables and we don't
> need it so closely matching the production database. Log shipping
> also seems out as we need the reporting database to be highly
> available and if we keep applying transaction logs ever 15 minutes or
> so, we need to kick all the users out.
> Is there a way of scripting or automatically getting SQL Server 2k to
> copy over the last full backup it did and apply this to another
> server? Also if we used this method, what would happen to the users
> stored in the database? Would I have to keep re-adding them after the
> upgrade?
> Is there a better way to tackle this problem? All help gratefully
> received. We are running SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition on a
> Windows 2000 Server machine.
> Thanks.|||Personally I would

1. Identify the tables that you need to report on.
2. Take them over to the reporting server
3. Create triggers on your Source tables and have them capture the data
that is entered, updated or deleted in those tables to a seperate table.
4. Build a DTS package that is fired by the SQL Server Agent every night
that will pick up those changes and migrate them to your reporting server.

This means that you are only taking across the things you need to. Using
the backup and restore method is easy but you will need to possibly unorphan
logins and also even if nothing changes during the day you are still going
to take across the whole database whereas in the other method you wouldn't.

Just my 0.02

--

---------
Allan Mitchell (Microsoft SQL Server MVP)
MCSE,MCDBA
www.SQLDTS.com
I support PASS - the definitive, global community
for SQL Server professionals - http://www.sqlpass.org

"Jonathan" <nielsonj1976@.yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:9db42c2b.0310200347.50044387@.posting.google.c om...
> We have a production database, but due to the crippling load of some
> reporting tools, we are looking to have a separate reporting database.
> Due to it's nature, the reporting database doesn't need to be as up
> to date as the master, perhaps it could be refreshed every evening?
> What I wish to know is the best way to go about this. Replicating a
> whole database seems excessive as there are 7000+ tables and we don't
> need it so closely matching the production database. Log shipping
> also seems out as we need the reporting database to be highly
> available and if we keep applying transaction logs ever 15 minutes or
> so, we need to kick all the users out.
> Is there a way of scripting or automatically getting SQL Server 2k to
> copy over the last full backup it did and apply this to another
> server? Also if we used this method, what would happen to the users
> stored in the database? Would I have to keep re-adding them after the
> upgrade?
> Is there a better way to tackle this problem? All help gratefully
> received. We are running SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition on a
> Windows 2000 Server machine.
> Thanks.|||Jonathan (nielsonj1976@.yahoo.co.uk) writes:
> We have a production database, but due to the crippling load of some
> reporting tools, we are looking to have a separate reporting database.
> Due to it's nature, the reporting database doesn't need to be as up
> to date as the master, perhaps it could be refreshed every evening?
> What I wish to know is the best way to go about this. Replicating a
> whole database seems excessive as there are 7000+ tables and we don't
> need it so closely matching the production database. Log shipping
> also seems out as we need the reporting database to be highly
> available and if we keep applying transaction logs ever 15 minutes or
> so, we need to kick all the users out.

If you only need a daily refresh, there is no reason to apply logs
every 15 minutes. Once a day would do.

Of course with that low frequency, moving the entire database may
be a more palatable task. As Allan pointed out, you need to fix
users and login each time then, whereas with log shipping you would
only need to cater for new users.

> Is there a way of scripting or automatically getting SQL Server 2k to
> copy over the last full backup it did and apply this to another
> server?

Yes, you use the RESTORE and BACKUP commands. Read about them in Books
Online. And then you need to use some COPY command in the command-line
world to copy the backup file as it is not adviceable to backup or
restore from a network device. All this can be handled in a job from
SQL Agent.

--
Erland Sommarskog, SQL Server MVP, sommar@.algonet.se

Books Online for SQL Server SP3 at
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/techin.../2000/books.asp

Creating Linked Servers

I'm new to this aspect of SQL Server so bear with me here. I have 2 SQL Servers (2000) in seperate locations on separate IPs. From what I'm reading and from what I've tried using Enterprise manager, the only way I can link the other server is by using the IP address as the name. Is there a way that I can specify a "user-friendly" name which will be used to reference tables on the linked server in queries?

This is the first time I've run across something that none of my books, nor the books online seem very clear about. Keep that in mind when replying, please. I may need the remedial course for this. <grin>

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks.On the machine that you will be registrying the Linked Servers, if you can not ping the SQL Server name of the other 2 ?

c:\> ping MyServer

But you can ping the IP addresses

c:\> ping xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

Then you can create "user friendly" names 2 ways.

1) Add the 2 servers to the LMHOST file of the server or
2) Us SQL Server Client Network Utility to define Alias for these 2 servers.

The second method is the easiest since it is straight forward and you are using SQL Server tools. The first way is more of a global definition, that defines an alias that can be used by all commands and tools (ie net use). Where as the second method is strickly SQL Server realm.

Make sure that you use TCP/IP as your Network Library when defining the aliases (method 2).