Marxist Hacker 42's Journal: Knowledge Transfer Time

What is your favorite Data Modeling Software that interfaces with SQL Server?

It looks like Microsoft has dropped Visio for Enterprise Architects, which is what I used the last time I had to do a massive knowledge transfer of a data heavy application.

I lame

[smittyoneeach]

I just use Access, then import it. But I'm so teh n00b.

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[Marxist Hacker 42]

I need reverse engineer capability.

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[smittyoneeach]

That import/export wizard in the Sequel Server Management Console worked really well.

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[Marxist Hacker 42]

I didn't know you could export Database Diagrams. I don't see it on the file menu- could it be because my company is cheap and we're running SSMS Express?

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[smittyoneeach]

http://ccm.net/faq/5587-sql-server-how-to-import-or-export-diagrams [ccm.net]

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[Bill Dog]

Interesting; I'll have to try that at work tomorrow. I'd been using some script that some guy on the Interwebz wrote that reads your diagram table(s) and generates another script that can be run to restore the diagram.

As far as data modeling, I think MS wants you to use Visual Studio for everything now. (For example I think the Expression suite got folded into VS.) There's a "SQL Server Data Tools for Visual Studio" thingie, that maybe, might provide it:

http://www.jamesserra.com/archive/2013/12/entity-da [jamesserra.com]

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[smittyoneeach]

I think MS wants you to use Visual Studio for everything now.

Fair statement. By the way, to make an external ODBC connection to a SQL server, you need an SPN, which implies an LDAP service as well?
I'm trying to configure a virtualized Win2012r2 server running SQLserver2014, and it's been a weekend migraine.

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[Bill Dog]

I didn't even know MS still supported ODBC.

And speaking of ancient history, your linked FA turns out to be a copy-paste from an MS KB article, sans the (rather important) part about it being for SQL Server 7.0 and 2000! (A dtproperties table doesn't even exist anymore; now the diagrams are shoved into a varbinary(max) field in dbo.sysdiagrams IIRC.) I (where by "I" I mean you, smitty) should've known it was just a worthless linkbait site, given the bad English and placeholder intro paragraph that didn't s

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[smittyoneeach]

As far as I can tell, if you want to expose SQL Server to an external process (e.g. for replication), it requires an AD account and has to get an SPN and a whole lotta magic. Microsoft seems to do a fine job of wrapping the '90s in ever-more-bewildering GUIs.
I'd rather be using PostGres.

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[Bill Dog]

As far as I can tell, if you want to expose SQL Server to an non-MS external process [...]

FTFY. When I (at home (sick today), on my oldish (2008 R2) SQL Server install here) fire up the Import/Export Wizard (from SSMS) for example, I see (source and) destination data sources of (from the bottom up) native client, OLE DB provider for a ton of things, Excel, Access, flat file, and then .NET Framework data providers for SQL Server, Oracle, and ODBC. If I select that last one, it wants what I recall ODBC needing, a DSN. No idea WTF an SPN is, but whatever exotic thing you're trying to connect to,

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[smittyoneeach]

Last night I (a total non-Windows 2012r2 Admin) waded through the hijinks necessary to create Active Directory accounts for processes to use Kerberos authentication.
About the only comparable open source disaster that comes to mind is GNU autotools, which ESR famously said must die [ibiblio.org].