Install Microsoft SQL Server and create a database - database configuration/design tasks

If you are tasked with installing and configuring the database, here is a list of steps to be taken:

  1. Install Microsoft™ SQL Server, or setup a Microsoft Azure Database in the cloud.
    Important: The collation of the SQL Server instance defines the collation of the tempdb system database. This can matter if your programs create temporary tables with CREATE TABLE #tabname. For more details, see Temporary tables.
  2. Create a SQL Server database entity with the SQL Server Management Studio.
    In the database properties:
    1. Define the database "Collation": The database collation defines the character set for CHAR/VARCHAR columns, and the "SC" collation option defines if NCHAR/NVARCHAR columns store UTF-16 characters (or UCS-2 when SC is not used). Choose the right code page / collation to get a case-sensitive database.
    2. The "Compatibility level" must be set to an SQL Server version supported by the Genero BDL.
    3. The "ANSI NULL Default" option must be set to true, if you want to have the same default NULL constraint as in Informix® (a column created without a NULL constraint will allow null values, users must specify NOT NULL to deny nulls).
    4. The "Quoted Identifiers Enabled" option must be set to false, to use database object names without quotes.
  3. Create and declare a database user dedicated to your application: the application administrator.
  4. If you plan to use SERIAL emulation based on triggers using a registration table, create the SERIALREG table and create the serial triggers for all tables using a SERIAL.
    See SERIAL and BIGSERIAL data types.
  5. Create the application tables.
    Convert Informix data types to SQL Server data types. See Data type conversion table: Informix to SQL Server. In order to make application tables visible to all users, make sure that the tables are created with the 'dbo' owner.