Synchronize Data
Because SQL Server environments are becoming larger and more distributed, administrators find themselves managing multiple servers that contain the same data or subsets of data, along with ever-increasing numbers of servers. The key to efficiently managing large numbers of servers is ensuring that they're standardized, and the key to managing distributed data is ensuring that that data remains synchronized with the master copy.
Red Gate offers two products that fill these gaps. DTS Compare lets you synchronize settings, jobs, logins, and Data Transformation Server (DTS) packages between servers. SQL Data Compare provides a compact interface in which you can synchronize table data between two databases. Although some scalability concerns are apparent when you're dealing with tables that have millions of rows, SQL Data Compare is essential if you're trying to troubleshoot and resynchronize replicated databases. Instead of wasting time and effort writing openrowset queries, you can use the point-and-click SQL Data Compare tool to select specific tables and columns from two databases to compare a table's data. Like SQL Compare, SQL Data Compare also generates a script to resynchronize the data.
Beyond the Box
Out of the box, SQL Server provides a staggering amount of functionality in an easy-to-use fashion. Although the tools that ship with SQL Server take care of 80 percent of the functionality you need, the tool set has some gaps. Lumigent, Embarcadero, and Red Gate offer products that provide functionality to fill those gaps. Each has seen successful testing in large and small production environments.
Some Microsoft partners also provide add-on products to SQL Server for improving database performance, querying and reporting, data mining, data analysis, and other tasks. See "Contact the Vendors," page 34, for a list of these vendors and their products.
End of Article
Prev. page
1
2
[3]
next page -->
