I need to do a join across two different database servers (IPs 10.0.0.50 and 10.0.0.51). What\'s the best way?
You need to use sp_linkedserver to create a linked server.
sp_addlinkedserver [ @server= ] 'server' [ , [ @srvproduct= ] 'product_name' ]
[ , [ @provider= ] 'provider_name' ]
[ , [ @datasrc= ] 'data_source' ]
[ , [ @location= ] 'location' ]
[ , [ @provstr= ] 'provider_string' ]
[ , [ @catalog= ] 'catalog' ]
More information available on MSDN.