I come from a linux/apache/php/mysql background. For my current project, I am forced to write web services using ASP.NET. I have installed visual studio and created an ASP.NET web service project. The web service I'm creating will use a SQL database backend. I see that visual studio installed "SQL Server Express 2008." I can see that there is a service called "SQL Server (SQLEXPRESS)" that is running. My question is, how do I run queries against this database? Where's the front end? What tool do I use to create databases and tables? Is there something else I have to install?
I feel completely lost and my google-fu fails me. There are so many different SQL products from microsoft that I can't tell what is the easiest path to just having a simple database with tables I can query from my development machine. With MySQL, I would install the MySQL database, download MySQL query browser and start firing queries at it. How can I do that with Visual Studio/SQL Server Express?
You can download SQL Server Management Studio from here. This is the GUI for working with SQL Server. It will let you create databases, tables, stored procedures, etc. as well as writing queries and manually edit data in the tables.
Aside from SQL Server Management Studio, you can use the Server Explorer tab in Visual Studio (by default on the right side, next to Solution Explorer) to add a data connection. You can do most of the most common database tasks (create/query tables, create views, etc) from there.
there's a command line tool that installs with SQL Server (all versions) called SQLCMD.exe, should be in your install path.
Visual Studio also lets you create dbs, run queries, look at table structures and data (including creating and deleting them, etc), you do that by opening your Server explorer window and making a connection to your local instance (.\SQLExpress by default).
Finally, as the other person mentioned, SQL Server Management Studio Express is a free download, and well worth the time it takes to install.
Related
I have set up an Oracle database on Amazon RDS and am attempting to build an asp.net webpage to access it. I am using Visual Studio 2013 and have the AWS Toolkit installed. I'm able to see my database instance in the AWS Explorer and can even modify it but I'm not able to add the database to the server explorer so I can utilize it from a webpage project.
If I right click on the database instance in the AWS Explorer and choose 'Add to Server Explorer...' nothing happens. When I open the DB Instances window and right click on the database the 'Add to Server Explorer...' option is greyed out.
I did try setting up a SQL Server database and was able to connect to that so I think it must be something specific about Oracle. I installed ODAC and it didn't help. I would be very appreciative for any advice you could offer.
Thank you.
You can't add an Oracle database to Server Explorer without the proper tools. Each database vendor provides different management capabilities and APIs. Server Explorer works with SQL Server out of the box because it already includes the proper integration provider.
You can download Oracle Developer Tools for Visual Studio from Oracle's site.
We are in the process of developing a new site that we plan to host on Azure. None of us have done this before, so it has raised some interesting challenges.
First, we are using code first and using migrations to update the database. We were having some issues figuring out how to deploy the database to Azure, so we ended up creating a database project.
There are a bunch of Azure specific issues with deployment, and you will get errors if you don't rectify all the valid SQL that Azure doesn't allow you to use.
It seemed to me that you should be able to do code first on the azure site just like we did on the local site, and I found This article that seems to address the issue.
What I am wondering though, is best practices.
I would assume we don't need database projects anymore, but I am not
sure about that. What is the best practice for managing databases
with Visual Studio 2013 and code first.
The approach in the article above seems fine for a system in
pre-production, but once a system is in production and has live
data, is this a recommended approach?
How do you protect yourself from mistakes like somebody accidentally changing a
setting that tells Visual Studio to recreate the database?
Any thoughts or ideas would be appreciated.
First i would like to state from my understanding, when using Entity Framework and you have Enabled Migration, it's only meant for development and it is recommended that you set it to false when deploying your code.
As for deploying to Microsoft Azure, i have only done this using Visual Studio Team Services. The thing about Code-First is that you have no Sql Queries and the database is not deployed right away. So here is what i have done in the past,
Create a blank Sql Query in SQL Management Studio
In Visual Studio Server Explorer expand your database for the
project to table level
Right click on each table and select "Show Table Definition" I wish
we could do this at Database level.
Copy and past the T-SQL to a blank Sql file in SQL Management
Studio. Note that all table queries can fit in one
file, just have to follow T-SQL rules. Connect to your Azure
Database Instance using SQL Management Studio.
Run the SQL Query against the database on Azure. Note that the
sample data you had used in developemnt will not be on your Azure
database at this moment, you will have to create an insert T-SQL and
run it against the Azure database.
Also make sure that your app has the right connection string when deploying to Microsoft Azure and it should connect to you database just fine.
I have followed through a tutorial using a "Code First" approach with Entity framework. It seems like Visual Studio was smart enough to create the database for me and setup the tables and everything based on my classes. I have a question about the database that was created.
I notice that the database was automatically set up and I could see it in my Server Explorer window in Visual Studio. In my Web.config, under the connection string, I see Data Source=(localdb)\v11.0;.... There is also a .mdf file created in a folder called App_Data.
My question is:
Was Entity framework using MS SQL Server or SQL Express for the database it has created?
If it wasn't using MS SQL Server or SQL Express, what was the database that Entity used?
I don't remember installing SQL Server or SQL Express. Does installing Visual Studio automatically install MS SQL Server or SQL Server Express?
PS: I will appreciate if you can help me to clear up my doubts. Coming from a PHP background, I'm very new to .NET and its ecosystem.
The connection string indicate that you are using SQL Server Local DB.
With Microsoft SQL Server 2012, Microsoft has introduced a feature called LocalDB which is a new edition of SQL Express. LocalDB is created specifically for developers and it is much easier to install (no service) and manage than standard editions. Developers initiate a connection by using a special connection string. It supports AttachDbFileName property, which allows you to specify a database file location.
When connecting, the server is automatically created and started, enabling the application to use the database without complex configuration tasks. This edition uses the same sqlservr.exe as the regular SQL Express and other editions of SQL Server.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/evalcenter/dn434042.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh212961.aspx
Ok! I'm ready to embark on some .NET development for the first time.
I've recently installed Microsoft Visual Studio which included Microsoft SQL Sever 2005.
What is the prefered method for programming against a development database? I want to write an ASP.NET application that uses a database and I'm not sure how to create one. In my start menu for SQL Server 2005 all I have is:
SQL Server Configuration Manager
SQL Server Error and Usage Reports
SQL Server Surface Area Config
I don't see an intuitive program to create and design databases on that list, so how do I do it?! Will I be creating a full fledged SQL Server database or a "flat-file" fake database to program against?
Can someone please tell me what is up on creating my first MS SQL Server 2005 database?
If you've Visual Studio, just goto server explorer, Add a new database connection to your database, and start off.
Or, create a new website project in Visual studio, right click the App_Data folder->Add New Item and add a SQL Server database mdf file, which will be attached to the sql server when you run the app. You need to deploy the mdf file when doing a production release :)
You might want to watch the videos in ASP.NET website http://www.asp.net/learn/
Otherwise, consider using Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio (an express edition is also available).
You are looking for Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio Express. Its pretty easy to add a database once you get your head around it.
To be clear, the SQL Server included with Visual Studio is an express edition. However, the one thing it is lacking is the SQL Server Management Studio (Express). I'd download and install the express edition that included the management studio (note that VS 2005 and 2008 include SQL Express 2005, you can use either SQL Express 2005 or 2008 for your purposes).
You can create a new database and do everything you need to from within the VS IDE but you'll probably find the SQL Management Studio environment much more intuitive and simpler to use as a beginner.
A quick note on SQL Express - Microsoft doesn't suggest it for 'production' environments due to limitations placed on the amount of RAM that Express can see/use and a few other factors. This is one of the few cases in which I agree - if you're doing anything complex that involves large databases or dozens of users then invest in MSSQL Workgroup Edition at least, or for Enterprise projects use MSSQL Standard or Enterprise versions.
I've been doing PHP/MySQL websites with shared hosting providers for the last couple years. The day-to-day process is basically:
develop in Eclipse, one website per folder
upload via FileZilla, one website per folder
use PHPMyAdmin to create and manage your local and online databases and transfer data from one to another
to backup the online database I do dump of the database tables into script and copy them locally
I now want to build websites with ASP.NET with SQL Server 2008 on shared hosting providers, and am trying to get into this new paradigm, hopefully some of you can give me some pointers based on your experience and tell me what I am not doing optimally:
I've installed both the Visual Web Developer 2008 Express as well as the full version of Visual Studio 2008, both seem to be full-featured tools for developing ASP.NET sites. In terms of websites at shared hosting providers, what can you do with the full version that you can't do with the express version?
I use FileZilla to upload my sites, which seems to work fine. Do you use an external FTP program to upload your sites or do you use the "Publish" or "FTP Website" in the above IDEs?
I installed SQL Server 2008 Management Studio and can now issue SQL commands to my online SQL Server database (although I strangely can't see my database in the list on the left, I can still access it, I assume this is some rights issue with my provider, www.domainbox.de, but this provider told me to use their online manager instead, which is called "ASP.NET Enterprise Manager" which is extremely simple but at least has a "Query Box" which allows me to send queries to my database.) Is this "ASP.NET Enterprise Manager" standard with ASP.NET hosters or is there something else that is better, e.g. where you could edit your data in the grid, etc.? And I assume that with most providers you are able to manage your online SQL Server database with SQL Server Management Studio, is that correct? (I remember back in 2001 managing online SQL Server 2000 database at a shared hosting provider with Enterprise Manager and it would take literally 10 minutes for me to see my database on the left because it listed out the other 800 customer databases as well -- hopefully this has been solved by now).
How do you backup your data in your online database to local storage? (currently I would have to write code that output my data to some other format, e.g. XML or SQL Script)
And after you make a number of structural and data changes to your local database, how do you transfer those changes and the new data to your online database? (I had to install SSMS Tools [http://www.ssmstoolspack.com] to be able to dump my data into a script so that I could get it back into my online database).
So, although I've gotten most things to work, I feel like there must be better ways to go about this, better providers, better tools, etc. Would like to hear some "best practices" advice from anyone who works with ASP.NET, SQL Server and shared hosting.
For the most part, what you're doing now will work with an asp.net website.
For your development environment, I don't think you will be limited by using Visual Web Developer 2008 express for what you want to do. Here is a microsoft page that compares every version of visual studio 2008, including Visual Web Developer 2008 Express: Visual Studio 2008 Product Comparison
For deploying your website over the net, I would generall stick to deploying manually. You can use some of the automated stuff in visual studio, but your deployment will tend to be a little slower. After compiling your application, it will then delete every file in your destination website, and upload everying from scratch (uncompressed I think). Your whole site will be down while this happens. When you deploy manually you can upload just the changed files, or everything in a compressed format.
Regarding the SQL server, many shared hosting services will let you connect with some sort of local SQL management tool. However, connecting this way generally uses a lot of bandwidth so they throttle the allowed bandwidth for this way down. This is probably the performance issues you previously saw. If you can get by with it, I would use their hosted SQL tools for most of your work, but then use the management studio for anything it can't handle.
For backing up your SQL server, if your host doesn't have a way for you to perform an automatic backup then you will have to do something yourself. I would first check to see if they will allow you to at least run a SQL backup command. This will generate a .bak file of your database, but on the local database server. Most places will work with you on this, since many customers need this.
For applying changes to your database, your best bet is to script all of the changes into one sql script and run it using the remote SQL management tool. These aren't hard to write, and there are a few tools out there that will help you with it. I personally like to use Visio. It lets me compare two databases (local and remote) then generate a script to apply to the remote one with all the changes.
Good luck
As far as capabilities of VS Express vs Standard - Standard is still the better tool. It gives you a richer debugging experience, broader support for solutions/projects dependencies among other things.
These things still matter even when doing shared hosting b/c you absolutely need to debug your app (client and server side). You can do this adequately with Express with some caveats (cant attach to an arbitrary process, client side javascript debugging is a pain), Standard makes this MUCH easier.
For publishing/deploying - I would recommend 'Web Depoyment Projects' - an MSBuild extension that you can download from MS. This gives you a lot of customizability of how you want to build and deploy your website - which can include sending it to an FTP site. If you have ever used MSBuild and like it - Web Deployment Projects are the easiest hook to extend your build process with an ASP.NET website.