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I'm signed up to Amazon Web Service (AWS) free tier, which allows you to run some very limited instances of EC2 and RDS for free.

I've created an RDS instance running SQL Server 2012 Express - this does not allow remote desktop access, so I also have an EC2 instance running Windows Server 2012 base, and I have installed SQL Server Management Studio and I'm able to connect.

I would like to import some kind of sample database - for example, Northwind, AdventureWorks, or anything that has at least a handful of tables and relationships. The reason is I want to just experiment and practice on a few things (for example, I want to try out the EXPLAIN feature to get to learn how the relational algebra works and how SQL plans out various test queries).

My problem is that Amazon's RDS does not allow me to restore a .BAK file, as local disk access is not allowed, and neither is FILESTREAM, so I can't just download a sample database backup and restore it.

Amazon document their workaround here, which involves creating a local instance of SQL Server on the EC2 instance (my machine with SQL Server Management Studio installed, which I have RDP access to), and use the Generate and Publish Scripts Wizard to import data from the EC2 to the RDS. My problem here is that I don't have enough disk space to install a local database instance - as I'm on the free tier I'm limited to 30GB total disk space for the server, so the OS + SQL Server Management Studio leaves just a couple of gigs. So I'm totally stuck.

Does anyone have any genius ideas here? Maybe some pre-made bulk insert scripts I can use (I can't find any) or some other solution? The database doesn't have to be big, just something to work with. Of course I could always pay to increase my disk space, and go through the whole tedious process outlined by Amazon, but I'd rather not!

Thanks

marc_s
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James Allen
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    Create a database on your local machine and create a remote database connection from your EC2 instance to it. – Tripp Kinetics Aug 07 '15 at 15:37
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    Also, I would suggest you ask this sort of question on http://dba.stackexchange.com/. You are more likely to get good answers there. – Tripp Kinetics Aug 07 '15 at 15:38
  • Thanks for the suggestion. Not familiar with setting up a remote database connection so I'll leave that as a last resort. Was kind of hoping someone had a simple SQL script I could run with data embedded in it, something like that. Also, I'm trying not to install tons of crap on my home PC, was the whole reason for experimenting with AWS! – James Allen Aug 07 '15 at 16:30
  • Setting up a remote database connection is very easy, and is powerful for a lot of problems. Google the solution in documentation. It's definitely a good tool to have in the toolbox. – Tripp Kinetics Aug 07 '15 at 16:31

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I got a perfect answer over on dba.stackexchange.com - there's a mini version of Northwind (2.6MB) here which has a script for creating the schema / importing the data. Thanks Tripp for suggesting I ask the question over there!

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James Allen
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