Do the original table gets updated, if i update a view of that table?

Question

I wan't sure how to word this question so I'll try and explain. I have a third-party database on SQL Server 2005. I have another SQL Server 2008, which I want to "publish" some of the data in the third-party database too. This database I shall then use as the back-end for a portal and reporting services - it shall be the data warehouse.

On the destination server I want store the data in different table structures to that in the third-party db. Some tables I want to denormalize and there are lots of columns that aren't necessary. I'll also need to add additional fields to some of the tables which I'll need to update based on data stored in the same rows. For example, there are varchar fields that contain info I'll want to populate other columns with. All of this should cleanse the data and make it easier to report on.

I can write the query(s) to get all the info I want in a particular destination table. However, I want to be able to keep it up-to-date with the source on the other server. It doesn't have to be updated immediately (although that would be good) but I'd like for it be updated perhaps every 10 minutes. There are 100's of thousands of rows of data but the changes to the data and addition of new rows etc. isn't huge.

I've had a look around but I'm still not sure the best way to achieve this. As far as I can tell replication won't do what I need. I could manually write the t-sql to do the updates perhaps using the Merge statement and then schedule it as a job with sql server agent. I've also been having a look at SSIS and that looks to be geared at the ETL kind of thing.

I'm just not sure what to use to achieve this and I was hoping to get some advice on how one should go about doing this kind-of thing? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

When modifying data through a view (that is, using INSERT or UPDATE statements) certain limitations exist depending upon the type of view. Views that access multiple tables can only modify one of the tables in the view. Views that use functions, specify DISTINCT, or utilize the GROUP BY clause may not be updated. Additionally, inserting data is prohibited for the following types of views:

* views having columns with derived (i.e., computed) data in the SELECT-list  
* views that do not contain all columns defined as NOT NULL from the tables from which they were defined