I have two SQL Server instances and I do a lot of remote querying of a database on one server from another server. Like this query on server1.database1:
select T1.id
from server1.database1.dbo.table1 T1
inner join server2.datbase2.dbo.table2 T2
on T1.id = T2.id
I’ve inherited this code from someone else and was wondering if there’s a better (faster) way of doing this? I mean, is there a way I could create an exact replica copy of server2.databse2.dbo.table2 on server1.database1.dbo that updates itself and keeps itself current in real-time?
Microsoft SQL Server Standard Edition (64-bit)
Version 10.0.4000.0
EDIT: Actually, what I do now in this scenario is, if I can, I use open query and with(nolock) to grab the smallest dataset I need, and I put that in a temp table. And I set up the “id” column to be a unique clustered index, so that it can join quickly on whatever I’m joining on server 1.
In SQL Server, you have three main options for your scenario (Depending on your version and edition):
Log Shipping: Easy to setup and maintain; however, the “replica” database wouldn’t be real-time, and would only be as up-to-date as your last transaction log backup from the original server.
Mirroring: Very close to real-time, but the “replica” database can’t be read from directly; instead, a snapshots would need to be periodically created.
Replication: Difficult to manage and maintain, but would likely give you the most real-time version of the data on your “replica” database.
Unless you’re having performance or stability issues with the linked server, it’d stick with that approach unless you’re willing to spend a lot of time and effort implementing one of these three approaches.