We have a project that is being worked on currently by 5 developers and could get more at any time. The developers are located at different places in the US. Our back end is Code First Entity Framework based on a SQL Server database.
Some of the developers have SQL Server Express and some have full blown SQL Server. We need a way to have the solution everyone works on but each developer needs to have his own connection string to the data so they can connect to their individual instances. We cant use localhost because express versions have named instances of SQLEXPRESS.
We could just change the connection string when we grab the code form Git but then every time we sync we will have conflicts to merge so that would be a pain.
Has anyone run into this?
A very simple solution would be to have everyone use SQL Server Express or SQL Server Developer Edition. You can install both side-by-side, so that should not be an issue. Especially since SQL Express is free...
Another option is to define a SQL Server Connection Alias on each client with a predefined name. Then add the alias to your .config. That way the SQL Client will resolve to the right database and you can define one static value in your .config.
The 3rd solution is to add a configsource="connectionstrings.config" and create these files on the local workspace, but don't check them in. You can add a connectionstrings.template.config and check that in to provide a starting point. These files don't need to be part of the solution.
The 4th option is to store the connectionstring in a .Settings file, set it to user and use the standard configuration API to store the connectionstring in the application settings folder of the users profile. You'll need to pass the connectionstring to the constructor of the Context class.
Related
I am running Mule Anypoint studio v6.2.4 under Windows. I have an application which gets data records from a SQL Server DB and populates them into Salesforce Org. The application was developed using examples and works fine in the current scenario of one DB and one SF parameters defined in a mule.properties file. This structure works but with serious limitations. Whenever a new DB instance is provided (DEV/QA/SAT/UAT...) and a different destination SF Org is chosen, all the mule applications need to be modified as the access parameters are defined in the property file.
I asked for help about how to dynamically define and use the access parameters in this question. (Defining various DB & Salesforce access information in Mule Anypoint Studio). While the proposed solution worked, it was still based on property file approach. Hence whenever a new DB or SF Org is to be worked on, all the mule applications will still need to be changed because of the property file approach.
A correct approach will be define all the access parameters in an external file. In the mule app, retrieve the appropriate access parameters based on DB name or Org name (provided as http query parameters). Use their values to initialise appropriate mule script variables. This way new DBs or Orgs can be added at will and mule app should work without any re-compilation or changes.
My mule app is batch based and config code fragment to access SQL DB is as follows::
<db:generic-config name="legacyDB" url="jdbc:jtds:sqlserver:${dbHost}:${dbPort};databaseName=${dbName};user=${dbUser};password=${dbPassword}" doc:name="Generic DB Config"/>
How would I accomplish it so that DB or SF access works as defined? Details will help me as I am not that proficient in Mule yet.
Thanks
Kishore
What about reading an external file using a JavaClass and returning a JavaObject to Mule, then you can easily manage those values.
Check this project and change the path in the LoadExternalFile.java to load your own json file. There is an example in the src/main/resources
https://github.com/angelalberici/external-property
I have downloaded the samples from the IdentityServer3 github repo and ran the MembershipReboot project, I changed the connection string to point to a real server but I still don't see how to get it create the database, I thought this used EF code first to do this. I just feel lost right now trying to understand how to use IdMgr and IdSvr.
You were right, The IDS MembershipReboot project relies on MembershipReboot which in itself uses EF migration scripts to generate the database if it doesn't exist (or upgrade it if it's an old one).
But, note that you need the connection string to use a user with permissions to create the database and tables in it.
Also, as far as I can remember you need to actually hit the (IDS) server with a request to get things spin up and create the DB. Otherwise, IDS would not load anything from the IoC container and the DbContext would not get created. But this is something I cannot verify now.
The configuration database of IDS (scopes, clients, claims etc.) is stored in-memory in the MembershipReboot sample you are using. It could be stored in MSSQL using EF (or any other store if you care to implement it). You can see a working sample that uses EF and MSSQL in the EntityFramework sample project. I guess you can combine the two samples get what you are after.
I have deployed same application in two different computers. Now i need to merge both data from two different database into single database.
The application is developed using c# .net and uses sql express 2008.
The problem arised because i could not use the application over LAN.
So i need to merge the two database into one.
So please help me to solve the problem to merge it.
I also need to run the application over LAN but the sqlbrowser doesnot start and i have searched the internet for the answer but i haven't been lucky.
thank you, waiting for response.
The approach you want to take will depend largely on your schema, but Microsoft Sync Framework should likely be useful. It would let you define rules for resolving conflicts and merging your data.
As for accessing your data over the LAN, this post has a good overview of what it takes to enable remote access to your SQL Server Express.
There are some queries for which we need resolution before we purchase sitefinity 5.0 license. I would really appreciate if could get answers to these
What are the recommended guidelines to setup the sitefinity project in the source control? If there 4 to 5 developers working on the project, what should be the starting point in setting up the initial codebase? Do every developer has to create the sitefinity website and DB on their dev-boxes?
Is it recommend to setup a common DB for the sitefinity website where all the dev-machine would be connecting to do the development, if not what is the alternative approach?
Is there any online documentation available related to build and release of sitefinity web applications, other than publishing from within the visual studio?
Thanks
Gaurav
We've been developing with Sitefinity since version 2, with multiple developers.
To answer your questions specifically:
Have a single developer (ideally your lead dev) create a clean sitefinity visual studio solution on their local machine. Check it into your source control repository and have each additional developer pull down a copy from there. You're now all in sync.
In terms of database location, two approaches work - either have each person run a local database, and in the web.config setup the connection string location as . (i.e. local). That way no one needs to check out the web.config to run it. Otherwise use a common development/testing server for the database. We've found the easiest way is to each have a local DB, unless multiple devs are working on very specific tasks together at the same time.
I have not seen any online documentation related to building outside of visual studio. If you have TFS or a MS build server, it should work fine as well.
In general, there is nothing 'special' about Sitefinity's architecture that separates it from any other .NET / MSSQL solution. Best practice that falls under these technologies still applies.
My experience with source control has been one of two options. If you are using SQLExpress user instance databases (that is an mdf in the App_Data folder) I've found versioning everything except this database file and the dataconfig.config file in the configurations folder will allow every developer to run their own copy of the website.
from there you can either do some kind of manual merge of the database or just create a new one for deployment.
This option works best if your developers are simply working on features, and don't need to be working on an actual website, modifying content that has to keep in sync.
Alternatively, if they do need to work with live content and it all has to be the same, create the database in a shared server they all have access to, and version everything (since the connection string should be the same for both).
This works best if your developers are doing work to support existing content as opposed to say creating modules that manipulate the database (creating tables, columns, etc), because keep in mind with this method, everyone will be accessing and modifying the same database.
Personally, my preference is option 1, because it allows each developer full control over their environment. the source could then be merged and shadowed to a staging server, so that the main site content is only affected by this one instance.
I hope this is helpful!
I'm looking for advices and suggestions on how to synchronise data between two databases.
The first database is a SQL Server 2008 Express that run on disconnected laptops (no network or internet access). The second database (main) is a VFP 9.0 that run on a server.
When the user connect their laptop on the network, I want the synchronisation process to go through.
Other than the different database engines, I have the following items to take into account:
The tables don't necessary have the same structure
The primary keys are not the same (GUID in the SQL Server and often a combination of character fields in VFP)
Synchronisation of the tables must be done in a certain order to respect the parent-child relationships
On some insert on the SQL Server side, a new primary key must be generated and synchronised in the VFP table
A bunch of validations must be made and some feedback from the user are sometimes needed
Not all records need to be synchronised
Some records on the SQL Server need to be deleted after the syncronisation
Need to take into account deleted records from both side
Minimal modifications need to be done on the VFP database
There are probably other points I'm forgotting now, but I think you get the idea of the challenge I face. My guess right now are that I will need to build a custom synchronisation module, but I want your input before I go on in case I overlooked some options and to get some tips on how to approach this.
I looked rapidly at Microsoft Sync Framework, but with all the restrictions I have and the fact that there is no VFP client already built (AFAIK), I don't think it will be of great help.
Thanks in advance for your feedback.
Update: The laptop application is a C# WinForm application and is using SQL Server 2008 Express.
The complexity of the situation and requirements leads me to believe you need to write a Visual FoxPro application. Visual FoxPro connects to SQL Server 2008 data easily. The complexity of the code is matching the requirements and identifying the data that needs to be synched, not the syntax. Visual FoxPro strength is in the data manipulation language and the ability to connect to almost any data source (native DBFs, ODBC, ADO, and XML).
SQL Server can read VFP 9 data via the VFP 9 OLE DB driver. You could write T-SQL stored procedures to get to the VFP data. Not sure how it would recognize the laptop being connected to the network though.
Another approach is to use SQL Server XML Diffgrams. I am not an expert by any stretch of the imagination on this approach, but it would be something you can research.
Since my expertise is with Visual FoxPro I would find it way easier to go the other way though, but that is just me. You have to go with the skillset of the resources you have for the project.
VFP reads and writes SQL Server data via a connection (DSN, ConnectionString) and any technique involving SQL Passthrough (SQLConnect(), SQLExec() and SQLDisconnect()), CursorAdapters, Remote Views, or a combination of the three.
A Visual FoxPro program can also recognize Windows Events like connecting to a network. The application could be installed on each laptop and running to recognize the Windows Event. Once the event is raised the application can attempt to connect to the SQL Server database (possible it is connecting to a network without the SQL Server available or a different network).
Once connected it runs the logic to check and synchronize the databases.
Sounds like you don't have a lot of control over the application writing to the VFP 9 data on the laptop. If you do have control over the application writing to the VFP 9 database you might consider changing the app to write to a SQL Server Express instance on the laptop and then you can use SQL Server replication to manage the synchronization. Not a trivial task though and SQL Server replication, while getting better with each release, does cause hair loss in DBAs. Definitely a lot of work going this route.
Rick Schummer
Visual FoxPro MVP
I would encourage you to take another look at MS sync framework. We have a situation where we want to synchronize occasionally connected C# clients apps with our Java/Oracle backend. You can use the sync framework providers for the C# client and implement your own custom subclass of KnowledgeSyncProvider for the backend. This will get you half-way there, and show you a good pattern to apply for the rest.