Idera’s SQL Virtual Database – more info…

I published a blog posting a couple of weeks ago entitled “Geeking with Idera’s SQL Virtual database” because someone at work wanted to know if they could pluck objects out of a SQL Server backup; Idera makes some really great products and they were the first people that I turned to for a solution to handle something like this. 

As I mentioned then, I met several of their folks while I at my stay at ISI/SQLRx on one occasion, so I knew that they had a good team with some bright minds as well as some super offerings for administering and monitoring Microsoft SQL Server.  Virtual Database v1.4 worked really great during my testing, and did exactly what it was billed to do, a very slick product, but I went a little further to try and find out what was going on under the covers being the inquisitive person that I am.   I ran into some questions concerning how the product behaved, and was pleasantly surprised a few days later by Heather Sullivan who emailed me from Idera with the answers to my questions. Here’s what she wrote:

Lee,
I saw your blog post about SQL virtual database and I wanted to see if I could help answer some of the questions you had about the product.

1.       In the current version, SQL virtual database console can only create virtual databases on local instances. This restriction is being removed in a future release.
2.       SQL virtual database does create sparse files which hold the pages that get changed during recovery or during inserts, deletes, etc. since we obviously cannot write the changes to the backup file. The actual size of the sparse file can only accurately be seen by selecting Properties on the file and looking at the 'Size on Disk' value. The actual size should be very small and vary greatly from the ‘Size’ field, as shown in the attached screenshot.

3.       We do, allow the location of the sparse files to be changed by opening the console and going to Help&More->Change Setup->Basic tab->Folders-Virtual Database Files.
4.       While you can use the 'create database....' command we strongly recommend that you use our console or command-line application. Using either of these you can create, modify, delete a virtual database. The CLI is 'sqlvdbcli' and if you type that at a command prompt you can see the full usage syntax.
5.       As you found, SQL virtual database and SQL Server do not like sharing a data file (real or virtual) ☺.

Please let me know if there is anything else I can do to help or if you have any further questions.

Heather Sullivan
Director, SQL Server Products
Idera

I am a fan of Idera, always have been, and I think that it is really great that someone took the time to respond to my blog. If that isn’t someone who is exhibiting customer service and concern for the user community - even for someone such as myself who is only test-driving a ‘trial version’ - then I don’t know customer service is! I recommend that you check out all of their products; they have a great offering, are reasonably priced, and stand behind their tools. Even better…they will respond quickly to their customer base to exceed product expectations, case in point.

Thanks for reading,
Lee

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“One minute you're up half a million in soybeans and the next, boom, your kids don't go to college and they've repossessed your Bentley. Are you with me?”