First Thing First, Let’s Build Our Lab
I had worked in chemistry labs for years. When we talk about lab, we need a physical location, a lot of equipment (bench, hood, chemical cabinets, and etc.) and instruments (balance, NMR, HPLC and so on). It is impossible to get a free chemistry lab. For our SQL lab, it is completely a different story.
You fun SQL lab is located in your or mine own home. You have the equipment and instrument already and that is your own computer. You don’t need to check the RAM size and processor speed, I am sure that your computer will be good enough for learning purpose. All the software we will use are free to download, or at least are free during trial period. All vendors encourage you to learn their software.
Today, we will download and install Microsoft SQL Server.
First, follow this blog page by Andy Leonard about to sign up a Microsoft account and down load SQL Server. http://sqlblog.com/blogs/andy_leonard/archive/2016/06/02/sql-server-2016-developer-edition-is-free.aspx
Second, install SQL Server either follow another post by Andy Leonard. http://sqlblog.com/blogs/andy_leonard/archive/2016/06/02/sql-server-2016-developer-edition-is-free.aspx
or by watching this YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqHh2B4CZPo
Third, follow the last several minute of the video, run SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) and login to the SQL server database engine.
Even though this video is less than 20 minutes long, the whole process (downloading, installation, downloading again, installation again) take about 2 hour, with about 30 minutes of of click and 90 minutes of waiting. Do you know that you don’t need to go through this to have fun? There is a faster way available: going to the cloud. It is faster and free (at least for some time). I will show your next time.