Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 5
Importing and Exporting
Database Objects
Objectives
◾
Migrate databases between Windows Azure SQL Database and an on-premises SQL Server
◾
Move data in and out of a database
5.1 Introduction
Once a database is created, the database administrator will move some existing data into the newly
created database, or move some of the data out of the database to support application develop-
ment. Sometimes, databases need to be copied from one server to another server. For example,
the database administrator may need to migrate the databases from an on-premises server to a
Windows Azure database server, or migrate them from one data center to another data center.
Moving data in and out of databases can be a challenging process. here will be issues related
to user authentication; not everyone can access and manipulate the data. here will be issues
related to data formats, and the data formats at the source and the destination may not match
exactly. To make things worse, the features supported by an on-premises server may not be sup-
ported by a cloud server.
In this chapter, we will introduce several tools for data transport. here are several ways to
move data in and out of a database. he commonly used data moving tools by Windows Azure
SQL Database are SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS), data-tier applications (DACs), SQL
Database Migration Wizard, SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS), and the bulk copy utility
bulk copy program (bcp) that copies data between an instance of Microsoft SQL Server and a data
ile in a user-speciied format. In addition to these tools, XML can also be a solution for handling
data conversion tasks. With XML, data can be exchanged over heterogeneous computer systems
and various programming languages. When sharing data in a multitier database system, XML is
often used to represent the data and the structure of the database objects in a common format. In
this chapter, we will take a closer look at each of these tools.
