I have been troubleshooting some Microsoft SQL connectivity issues lately in my home lab and I needed a quick and easy way to verify or test SQL server connectivity with several login accounts. Apparently there is a nice and quick way to do it on your windows machine that is already build in. Just create a text file, rename the extension to .udl (Universal Data Link) right-click the file and select the properties tab. Enter the server IP address or FQDN, username and password and click Test Connection.
This tip or trick is probably well known to all DBA’s but I’m not a DBA and I found this very useful. So there you go, a nice and easy way to test SQL server connectivity from any Windows machine. 🙂
Cheers!
– Marek.Z