Question

I have two SQL Server instances on two virtual machines, Test server and Production server.

I need to do an UPDATE to the production server taking data values from test server.

For example :

UPDATE [server_production].dbname.mytable 
SET column1 = [server_test].dbname.mytable.column1

How do I do this ?

Answer 1

On your production server, define a Linked Server that points to your test server.

Then, on your production server you can run a query similar to the following to update your column:

UPDATE p
    SET column1 = t.column1
from <dbname>.<schema>.mytable p
join <TestLinkedServerName>.<dbname>.<schema>.mytable t
    on p.<id> = t.<id>

In the above query, you’ll need to provide values for the placeholders:

• <dbname> – the name of the prod/test database
• <schema> – the schema in which the table is defined (typically dbo)
• <TestLinkedServerName> – the name you’ve given to the linked server
• <id> – your PK column, or a column that uniquely identifies rows and provides a way to join the two tables