HeidiSQL is a very useful Open Source client to SQL Server

It is nice to have access to SQL Server from an Open Source program and HeidiSQL nicely comes in handy. It is free and Open Source. HeidiSQL can handle a surprisingly large number of tasks. Review this list:
•Connect to multiple servers in one window
•Connect to servers via command-line
•Connect via SSH tunnel, or pass SSL settings
•Create and edit tables, views, stored routines, triggers and scheduled events.
•Generate nice SQL-exports, compress these afterwards, or put them on the clipboard.
•Export from one server/database directly to another server/database
•Manage user-privileges
•Import text-files
•Export table rows as CSV, HTML, XML, SQL, LaTeX, Wiki Markup and PHP Array
•Browse and edit table-data using a comfortable grid
•Bulk edit tables (move to db, change engine, collation etc.)
•Batch-insert ASCII or binary files into tables
•Write queries with customizable syntax-highlighting and code-completion
•Pretty reformat disordered SQL
•Monitor and kill client-processes
•Find specific text in all tables of all databases of one server
•Optimize and repair tables in a batch manner
•Launch a parallel mysql.exe command line window using your current connection settings

In addition to Microsoft SQL Server you can also connect to PostgreSQL and MySQL. From the list above it can be seen that HeidiSQL can do things that SQL Server Management Studio cannot.

HeidiSQL may be downloaded from here by using any of the options.

Downloading and Installation is described ( from an installer) here in detail.

Connecting to SQL Server 2012 using HeidiSQL is described here.

Here is a named instance of SQL Server 2012 accessed on HeidiSQL.

Installing XAMPP on a computer running Windows 10

While looking for installing MariaDB, I came across a suggestion that installing XAMPP would be the best way to download and get MariaDB (as it is one of the programs on XAMPP)
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MariaDB does lot more than MySQL and it is MySQL's challenger arising out of MySQL (MariaDB is MySQL's fork). MySQL in LAMP stack has been replaced by MariaDB. The download link for XAMPP with MariaDB  is here. MariaDB is a truly open source with many advantages.

The download versions of XAMPP are v5.5.30 and v5.6.14 (both x32bit). These versions have  the following components and they can be downloaded from here

Xampp_Maria.png

These are all the programs in this download of XAMPP.

Updated PHP to 5.5.30 / 5.6.14
Updated Apache to 2.4.17
Updated MariaDB to 10.0.17
Updated phpMyAdmin to 4.5.0.2

After downloading double click xampp-win32-5.6.14-3-VC11-installer.
Bitnami shows up. Bitnami is very similar to Windows Platform Installer for Microsoft and some Open Source programs. Here are some screen shots of the installation.

XAMPP_01.png

Click Next to select components to install.

XAMPP_02.png

Choose the components you want installed. Since I had installed PHP recently, I chose to install only Apache and MySQL servers only. Clicking Next takes you to the next screen.

There was an advice not to install on C:\drive and so created a new drive J: for this installation.

XAMPP_03.png

After choosing installation folder click Next. The Bitnami set up for installing XAMPP gets displayed as shown.

XAMPP_04.png

Click Next. The Ready to Install window is displayed together with the windows command program as shown. I am not sure why this comes up. I did not close the this window going forward.

XAMPP_05.png

Click Next. The unpacking and installing processes begin as shown.

XAMPP_06.png

After a while Completing the XAMPP Setup Wizard is displayed.

XAMPP_07.png

Click Finish. You are done installing XAMPP.

After this installation you get  an app on your Windows 10 computer as as shown.

XAMPP_app.png

Click on the XAMPP Control Panel to bring up the control panel as shown.

XAMPP_Maria14.png

Although the XAMPP details in the beginning of this post indicated that MariaDB is packaged with this install it can be seen that it is still MySQL. Of course to run Apache needs some more configuring specially, as the port 80 is already used by IIS and or Skype. The other complication is that there was already an MySQL from a previous installtion from Oracle. After modifying these (essentially changing port assginments and removing previous version fo MySQL), I may be able to work these servers and see MariaDB.

MySQL is challenged by its fork

MariaDB has thrown the gauntlet to MySQL (written by Michael (monty) Widenius who also forked MARIADB). It looks like Google will take up MariaDB abandoning MySQL. One of the reasons appears to be a difference in perception between Oracle  and Google. The support for MySQL from Oracle does not match the aspirations of Google, read the story here:

http://www.zdnet.com/google-quietly-dumps-oracle-mysql-for-mariadb-7000020670/

Google is the latest to abandon after Red Hat, SUSE and Wikipedia.

Read up about the history of MariaDB here:

https://mariadb.com/blog/history-mariadb

Look out for my next post on a brief introduction to Maria DB 10.0.