Snapshot Utility is a tool that allows you to create database snapshots via the command line. A snapshot is a file that stores the structure of a database, that is tables, views, procedures and all other objects. This information is stored in a proprietary format and can only be read by schema compare.
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A snapshot file stores only the structure of the database, with no user-data of any kind. It can be used to recreate the tables and other objects in a database, but the tables will be empty. |
The snapshot utility accepts parameters in the format /name:value. Spaces between the name and the value are not allowed. The value is separated from the name with a colon <:>. If the value itself contains spaces, it should be surrounded in double quotes.
The snapshot utility accepts the following command line parameters:
- /s:<server>: specifies the SQL Server instance.
- /d:<database>: specifies the database name.
- /t: indicates that the connection to the database should be a trusted connection, which is the default connection type.
- /u:<username>: specifies the username when connecting via the SQL Server authentication.
- /p:<password>: specifies the password when connecting via the SQL Server authentication.
- /sp:<filename>: saves the snapshot to the specified filename. If the filename is not specified, the snapshot file will be named as [database].snpx.
- /cs:<connection_string>: specifies the database connection string. This option should be used when additional settings, not supported via the command line options, are required, such as the connection timeout, for example. If the connection string is specified, all other SQL Server settings are ignored.
- /f:<setting_file>: creates the snapshot using the settings in the specified file. When the /f parameter is specified, all other parameters are ignored. In addition of being easier to manage, using a setting file allows you also to create snapshots for multiple databases. In this case use one line per database.
Examples:
The following command creates a snapshot for the database AdventureWorks on the local SQL Server using a trusted connection:
xSQLSnapshot /s:(local) /d:AdventureWorks /sp:"c:\AdventureWorks.snpx"
The following command creates a snapshot by specifying a connection string:
xSQLSnapshot /cs:"Persist Security Info=False;User ID=<username>;Password=<password>;Initial Catalog=AdventureWorks;Data Source=(local)" /sp:"c:\AdventureWorks.snpx"
The following command uses the setting file snapshot.txt to create the snapshot for two databases:
xSQLSnapshot /f:"c:\snapshot.txt"
The setting file snapshot.txt contains the following lines:
- /s:(local) /d:AdventureWorks_DEV /sp:"c:\AdventureWorks_DEV.snpx"
- /s:(local) /d:AdventureWorks_PROD /sp:"c:\AdventureWorks_PROD.snpx"