This article is initial step which helps the Beginner to get connected to SQL Server using the tool SQL Server Management studio.
Introduction
Connecting to SQL Server
In this article we will learn
-
Connecting to SQL Server using SSMS
-
What is SQL Server Management Studio
-
Different authentication methods used to connect
to SQL Server
First you should have SQL Server management studio
installed on your machine.
Note: There are several articles on web which help in
installing SSMS.
Steps to open SSMS
1.
Go to ‘Start’ menu.
2.
Click ‘Select Programs’.
3.
Depending upon the version of Microsoft SQL Server
installed you will see the folder
With the same name as shown in
the below screen shot.
Fig 1
4.
Select the ‘SQL Server Management Studio’.
5.
SSMS opens up for further operations.
SQL Server management Studio and
SQL Server are two different things.
SQL Server contains any data,
tables, triggers, database etc. whereas SSMS is a tool to connect to SQL
Server. Developer’s machine (clients) connects to SQL Server using SSMS.
Fig 2
Steps to Connect
to SQL Server
On the launch of SQL Server Management Studio,
1.
We get the below wizard to connect to SQL Server.
Fig 3
2.
First choice is to select the Server Type. The
default is ‘Database Engine’ and you will see the list of server types on the dropdown
like Analysis Services namely SSAS, Reporting Services(SSRS) etc., if we have
installed Business Intelligence during the SSMS installation.
Fig 4
3.
The Server Name ,if we have database on the
centralized machine as shown in Fig 2 then we can write the IP address or name
of the server.
If we are connecting to SQL Server
(Database Server) on our local machine we can write (local) or (.) or loop back
IP address (127.0.0.1) or the instance name created when installing SQL Server
on local machine.
4.
Next is to decide how we want to connect to SQL
Server.
During installation will be
having choice to select Authentication modes either Windows Authentication Mode
or Mixed Mode.
If we had selected ‘Windows Mode
‘during installation then will be having only one option for authentication
namely in the dropdown.
·
Windows
Authentication
If we
had selected ‘Mixed Mode ‘during installation then will be having two options for
authentication in the dropdown namely
·
Windows
Authentication
·
SQL
Server Authentication
5.
If we have chosen ‘Windows Authentication’ then we don’t have to provide any credentials
(username and password).
Because the authentication uses
windows login and we have already authenticated to login ourselves to the
computer. So basically Windows username and password will be used to validate
you against the Database.
Fig 5
If we have chosen ‘SQL Server Authentication’, then we
make use of the Username and password mentioned during the installation of SQL
Server.
Typically we specify the
username as ‘sa’ meaning System
Administrator during the configuration on local machines.
6.
Then on click on ‘Connect’ it will connect to the instance of the SQL Server
installed on that machine.
7.
On the object explorer we can see all the
database objects like Databases, Security related stuff etc.
Fig 6
Conclusion
In this article we have learnt how to connect to SQL Server with SSMS.My Next article on SQL Server will be 'Creating Altering Database'.