Posts Tagged ‘sql’

Visual Importer ETL

DB Software Laboratory announces new release of Visual Importer ETL, the visual integration software for the Windows platforms. The vendor, the world’s leading innovator in data integration and management technologies, today has announced the release of Visual Importer ETL, the latest version of the visual integration software for the Windows platforms. The application combines ETL and design capabilities all within one environment, significantly simplifying the creation and deployment of complex data warehouses and marts.

Comparing to previous release there are four major improvements:

- Massive performance gains
- Support for Unicode
- Better integration for Oracle databases
- Support for MySQL, PostgreSQL and Interbase/Firebird

We put a lot of effort into optimizing data import engine of “Visual Importer ETL” and as a result, it is much smaller, efficient and faster now. For example loading delimited text file into MS SQL Sever via BCP 500000 lines.

- Visual Importer ETL Standard version 4.9.0.0

2229 records per second
3 minutes and 44 seconds to load the data

- Visual Importer ETL Standard version 4.9.3.0

14347.58 records per second
34 seconds to load the data

Another important change is the ability to load data from Utf8, Utf16BE, Utf16LE files with or without BOM. There is also full support for international characters for ODBC connections, MS SQL Servers and Oracle databases.

“Visual Importer ETL” features a well-organized, straightforward program interface and simplified navigation, requiring no specialized programming skills in database deployment. By completely automating all stages of data processing, the application eliminates the need for any regular intervention and upkeep.

Below are some of the most significant “Visual Importer ETL” features:

- Easily extract and transform data from one database or file to another;
- Ultra-fast processing of input data;
- Comprehensive Error log;
- Rejected records file;
- Integrated Expressions builder;
- Calculations during loading process;
- Pivot tables loading;
- Mapping editor;
- Package designer

And here is what one of the customers think about the latest release: “‘I just transferred 10,000,000 million records from the main SQL Anywhere database over the network into a PostgreSQL database without a hitch…Thank you…You guys rock!”

Pricing and Availability

Visual Importer ETL runs under Windows NT4.0/2000/XP/2008. Its price starts from $100 for standard version. Registered customers are entitled to free updates and technical support. The 30-day fully functional evaluation version of the program is available for free at http://www.dbsoftlab.com

Related Links

Product page: http://www.dbsoftlab.com/ETL-Tools/Visual-Importer-Professional.html
Download page: http://www.dbsoftlab.com/Download-ETL-Tools/View-category.html
Company page: http://www.dbsoftlab.com/

Review: SQL Server 2008 for Developers

As always, Murach publishing updates their books as and when a new version of the software is released. SQL Server 2008 for Developers is an updated book of its 2005 edition. The book consists of 22 chapters divided into five sections providing solid coverage of SQL Server 2008. The book looks similar to that of its 2005 edition except the content and syntaxes targets 2008.

Inside the Book

Section 1 provides a crisp introduction to relational databases including various SQL statements. It also demonstrates the usage of SQL with the help of an ADO.NET application. The section also provides the usage of various aspects of SQL Server Management Studio. The chapters in section 2 provide a detailed coverage of Summary query, Subquery, Datatypes and functions. You will learn the procedure involved with the retrieval of data from tables and also the various aspects involved with inserting, updating and deletion of data.

While Section 3 provides a comprehensive coverage of database design and its usage and implementation with SQL Server Management Studio, Section 4 examines the working of Views, Scripts, Stored Procedures, Functions, Triggers, Cursors, XML and BLOBS including management of transactions, locking and database security.

Section 5 provides a brief overview of CLR integration including the usage of CLR Stored procedure, functions, triggers, aggregate function and user defined types. I hope these topics will be useful for advanced developers. The book includes three appendixes including a list of coding and syntax conventions. I would suggest the author provides a list of errors which may occur during the installation and usage of SQL Server 2008.

Each section begins with a detailed introduction followed by relevant syntax, examples, and screenshot of output and ends with a concise description in bulleted format. I feel readers will find it easy to go through the bulleted list rather than reading a lengthy paragraph. The book will be useful only if you have time to go through detailed content provided with each concept.

The book will be useful for instructors who impart training for students and I would suggest computer training centers keep a copy of the book on their library bookshelves. This book will not be useful for advanced developers and database administrators who are already well versed with SQL Server 2008. I would suggest the author provides a list of new features included with SQL Server 2008 so that developers can compare it with SQL Server 2005.

Conclusion

If you have read the previous edition of the book then you should buy the new edition to update yourself. From my point of view, it is always better to refer to a book rather than spending time online to get information about syntax updates and also to know about the new features included with SQL Server 2008.

Title – SQL Server 2008 for Developers
Author – Bryan Syverson and Joel Murach
Publisher – Murach Publishing
Edition – December 2008
Pages – 778
Price – US $52.50
Rating – ****

Reproduced from ASPAlliance.com

sql server 2008, murach publishing, sql

PR – Murach’s ADO.NET 3.5, LINQ, and the Entity Framework with VB 2008

Mike Murach & Associates has just published a new edition of their popular ADO.NET book. Now entitled Murach’s ADO.NET 3.5, LINQ, and the Entity Framework with VB 2008, it covers what today’s Visual Basic developer needs to know to create database applications the way the best professionals do. Here are some highlights:

#1: For rapid application development and prototyping…
This book shows how to use the ADO.NET tools, like data sources and the DataGridView control, that enable developers to create working database applications in a minimum of time, with a minimum of coding.

#2: For serious production applications…
This book shows how to go beyond the RAD tools, using heavy-duty ADO.NET coding and object data sources to build 3-layer applications that consist of presentation, business, and database classes.

#3: For incorporating LINQ into Windows and web applications…
This book has a 6-chapter section that’s a short course in LINQ, the .NET 3.5 feature that provides a consistent way to query different types of data. This section covers LINQ to Objects, LINQ to DataSet, LINQ to SQL, LINQ data source controls for web applications, and LINQ to XML.

#4: For database programming with the Entity Framework…
This book gets developers going with the Entity Framework, the .NET 3.5 feature that may change the way you do database programming. Entity Framework (EF) provides a flexible model for mapping the business objects in an application to database objects, and it generates a lot of the code that has to be written from scratch otherwise. A 4-chapter section shows how to create an Entity Data Model and work with it using LINQ to Entities, Entity SQL, and Entity data source controls for web applications.

#5: For training and reference: The “paired-pages” format…
This book uses Murach’s standard format to present the content in 2-page spreads, pairing a page of explanation with an illustrative page of syntax, screen shots, coding examples, and bulleted guidelines. Developers report that this lets them read less to get information faster, whether they use the book for training or reference.

Murach’s ADO.NET 3.5, LINQ, and the Entity Framework with VB 2008 is available directly from the publisher at www.murach.com and from all major retail outlets.

Murach’s ADO.NET 3.5, LINQ, and the Entity Framework with VB 2008
Author: Anne Boehm
Pages: 708  – ISBN: 978-1-890774-52-3 – Price: $52.50

SQL Basics

SQL Server is a client-server RDBMS that uses T-SQL to send requests between a client and SQL Server.Normally, client applications are called as Front-end and SQL Server is regarded as back-end. Users may not interact with SQL Server directly. Instead, they communicate through a GUI application built using Visual Basic, Visual C++, Java, C#, HTML. SQL Server can be deployed on the web via Microsoft Active Server Pages.

Classification of T-SQL Statements

T-SQL statements are classified into three. They are

Data Definition Language (DDL)
Data Manipulation Language (DML)
Data Control Language (DCL)
Data Definition Language

With the help of DDL statements, you can create and alter database objects like Tables, Rules etc like Create Table, Drop Table, Alter Table. We will examine these in a another tutorial.

Data Manipulation Language

DML statements enables you to change data and retrieve information from tables like Select, Insert, Update and Delete

Data Control Langauge

DCL statements allows you to set, change permissions for security purposes like Grant, Deny and Revoke.

In order to apply T-SQL statements, you have to learn SQL syntax. For example, to create a database and a table, you have to apply the syntax for creating the same. For each and every purpose, database operations there are syntaxes. Having said this, now you may ask a question where to apply these syntaxes.

Well. SQL Server provides a tool called SQL Server Query Analyzer with which you can effectively code SQL syntaxes. It supports color coding and lot of other features. Also, SQL Server provides another utility called osql. It runs from the command prompt. That means you can control clients activities from the DOS prompt.