Designing
& Engineering Microsoft SQL Server Databases
Introduction
SQL
Server is Microsoft’s premier database product. Visual Case provides full
support for the most used features of versions 2000, 7 and 6.5. Visual Case also facilitates
the migration from older versions of SQL Server or other database
(such as Microsoft Access) to the current platform.
Using Visual Case
to Design Microsoft SQL Server Databases
A database
can be built in Visual Case using the design tools or by reverse
engineering an existing database. If a design already exists
for a database of a different type it can be converted to SQL
Server.
For an
introduction to database design, visit our database design
tutorial.
Columns – These are built in
the table property page. Select a standard or user defined data type from the
list.
Data-types – Visual Case
supports all the standard data types.
Custom Data-types (New in 2.6)
-
User defined data types can be easily defined from the database
property page and are both forward and reverse engineered. In addition, rules can be set for
custom data types and the engineer also handles these
seemlessly.
Autonumber/Identity
Fields – These are built with the
identity attribute. In
addition Visual Case can automatically maintain a primary index on
autonumber columns.
Constraints – Both
table and column constraints are supported.
Indexes – These are
fully supported including primary, unique, ignore nulls,
clustered and ascending or descending.
Foreign Keys – These
supported with restrict, set null, default or cascade on
delete. On update can
restrict or cascade. Setting the child cardinality will synchronize the "allow
null" option on the foreign key columns and create a unique index if
the cardinality is "one only".
Triggers – These
are fully supported and are easy to design using our SQL
editor.
Stored Procedures and
Views – These are defined in the
database property page. Undock the editor to edit a long procedure or
view.
Functions (New in 2.6) –
User-defined functions are defined in the database property
page. Support for these is new in Visual
Case 2.6.
Rules (New in 2.6)
– These
are defined in the database property page and can be bound to
user-defined data types.
SQL Editor –
This editor is automatically activated for editing script and is
aware of the standard language features and names of dictionary
objects.
Engineering
Microsoft SQL Server Databases
Visual
Case's database engineering wizard will forward and reverse
engineer all database attributes that can be defined in your Visual
Case design of a SQL Server database.
The
wizard allows you to compare the differences between your database
design and the physical database before completing either the
forward or the reverse engineer.
The
forward engineer builds a transact-SQL script that can be saved and
manually run at a later time.
You
can quickly forward-engineer a single entity (table, stored
procedure, etc.) from its right-click menu or from its property
page.
For
more information about forward and reverse-engineering databases,
please visit our database engineering
tutorial.
Migrating to SQL Server
Visual Case will
convert any supported database type to SQL Server and migrate
between SQL Server versions. Visual Case will also reverse engineer
most ODBC or JDBC data sources to SQL Server, even if the physical
database is not a type directly supported.
Because of differences
between database data types conversion is usually a one-way process.
For example, converting a SQL Server varchar(300) column to Access
will produce a column of type memo as Access’s text data type is
limited to 255 characters. Converting back to SQL Server will
produce a column of type text as a memo column can be quite
long!
Free Trial Download
Finally, download the 30 day free trial of
Visual Case and get started.
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