Managing older versions from SSMS 2012

  • Hi

    Are there any issues regarding management of SQLserver 2008/R2, 2005 or even SQL2000 databases from the 2012 version of SSMS ?

  • I had extremely limited opportunity to try SSMS 2012 against 2000, but against 2005, 2008, & 2008R2, it works great. No issues at all.

    "The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
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  • I would agree...I am managing everything just fine from 2000 and up in SSMS 2012.

    The only thing I can't get to that I would need to is DTS but I also have the 2000 client tools installed on my windows 7 laptop to manage our older sql 7 and 2000 servers...

  • If by 'databases' you just mean the Database Engine then I can say I have not run into any issues connecting and managing 2000, 2005 or 2008 R2. Then again I write T-SQL for almost all my admin tasks so there may be some GUI features that fall short when referring to older instances that I simply have not run into.

    As far as connecting to older instances of Integration Services I do not think it is possible. I can connect to the local IS 11.0 service but do not know of a way to reference the previous service (I also have IS 10.0 installed and running).

    As for Reporting Services or Analysis Services, I could not tell you, I haven't tried them.

    There are no special teachers of virtue, because virtue is taught by the whole community.
    --Plato

  • I have only had to use SSMS 2012 to connect to 2012 and 2008 R2 servers. The only thing you'll need to watch out for is SSIS. SSMS 2012 will only connect to a 2012 instance of Integration Services. The reason for this is because you can install a 2008 R2 instance (not sure about earlier versions) of the IS service side-by-side with a 2012 instance. As a result, you have to use SSMS 2008 R2 to connect to the 08R2 instance and 2012 client tools to connect to the 2012 instance.

    This sounds kind of hokey but it actually a nice feature. We did an in-place upgrade of our 2008 R2 servers to 2012 and it enabled us to keep our 2008 R2 packages running without any changes. In most cases 2012 will run the 2008 R2 packages but we have well over 1,000 of them and didn't have time to test each and every one. With the side-by-side installation we can upgrade the packages to 2012 on a project-by-project basis with proper testing.

    [font="Tahoma"]Bryant E. Byrd, BSSE MCDBA MCAD[/font]
    Business Intelligence Administrator
    MSBI Administration Blog

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