How to create a indexed view with tables from 2 different databases using Schemabinding

Question

Here's the conondrum...

I have 2 databases on the same SQL Server 2008 R2 instance.

DB-One is for the website and the DB-two is a datadumb that gets updated daily from a dump.

Now I want to create an indexed view on DB-One where I am referencing 2 tables from DB 2.

So my query is something like

SELECT 
    TBA.COLA, TBB.COlA
FROM 
    DB-ONE.TBA.COLA A
JOIN 
    DB-TWO.TBB.COLA B ON (A.Id= B.Id)

Now this query works fine, obviously... However if I try and create a view with the following syntax it gives me an error

CREATE VIEW TESTVIEW WITH SCHEMABINDING AS

Error:

Cannot schema bind view 'TESTVIEW' because name 'DB-ONE.TBA.COLA A' is invalid for schema binding. Names must be in two-part format and an object cannot reference itself.

So if this approach is not possible then can anybody suggest any alternatives?

Answer 1

As mentioned in the error message, when using schema binding "Names must be in two-part format " which means they must be in [schema].[tablename] format, so the tables cannot be in 2 separate databases.

• Option 1: have a scheduled ETL job that persists the view data in a table in Db-One, index that table as needed, and then schedule ETL to load after the daily "data dump".

Run this once

USE [DB-ONE]
GO
CREATE TABLE dbo.myReport(/*column structure of your indexed view goes here*/);
go
--index table as needed
go

Then schedule this to run from DB-ONE after the daily "data dump" is loaded into DB-TWO:

use [DB-ONE]
GO
insert into dbo.myReport(/*list of columns*/)
SELECT TBA.COLA, TBB.COlA
FROM DB-ONE.TBA.COLA A
JOIN DB-TWO.TBB.COLA B ON (A.Id= B.Id)
;

• Option 2: you could copy over all the data from the DB-TWO table into DB-ONE and then still create your indexed view on the DB-ONE tables.