Best way to copy a database (SQL Server 2008)

Question

Dumb question - what\'s the best way to copy instances in an environment where I want to refresh a development server with instances from a production server?

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Answer 1

Easiest way is actually a script.

Run this on production:

USE MASTER;

BACKUP DATABASE [MyDatabase]
TO DISK = 'C:\temp\MyDatabase1.bak' -- some writeable folder. 
WITH COPY_ONLY

This one command makes a complete backup copy of the database onto a single file, without interfering with production availability or backup schedule, etc.

To restore, just run this on your dev or test SQL Server:

USE MASTER;

RESTORE DATABASE [MyDatabase]
FROM DISK = 'C:\temp\MyDatabase1.bak'
WITH
MOVE 'MyDatabase'   TO 'C:\Sql\MyDatabase.mdf', -- or wherever these live on target
MOVE 'MyDatabase_log'   TO 'C:\Sql\MyDatabase_log.ldf',
REPLACE, RECOVERY

Then save these scripts on each server. One-click convenience.

Edit:
if you get an error when restoring that the logical names don't match, you can get them like this:

RESTORE FILELISTONLY
FROM disk = 'C:\temp\MyDatabaseName1.bak'

If you use SQL Server logins (not windows authentication) you can run this after restoring each time (on the dev/test machine):

use MyDatabaseName;
sp_change_users_login 'Auto_Fix', 'userloginname', null, 'userpassword';

Answer 2

The detach/copy/attach method will take down the database. That's not something you'd want in production.

The backup/restore will only work if you have write permissions to the production server. I work with Amazon RDS and I don't.

The import/export method doesn't really work because of foreign keys - unless you do tables one by one in the order they reference one another. You can do an import/export to a new database. That will copy all the tables and data, but not the foreign keys.

This sounds like a common operation one needs to do with database. Why isn't SQL Server handling this properly? Every time I had to do this it was frustrating.

That being said, the only painless solution I've encountered was Sql Azure Migration Tool which is maintained by the community. It works with SQL Server too.