Working with AdventureWorks

You can learn more about this resource provided by Microsoft directly from their site here or on GitHub here.

AdventureWorks is an assortment of backup database files that Microsoft provides to users of SQL Server, Azure SQL Database, Azure Data Studio or SQL Server Management Studio. According to GitHub, "The AdventureWorks databases are sample databases that were originally published by Microsoft to show how to design a SQL Server database using SQL Server 2008. AdventureWorks is the OLTP sample, and AdventureWorksDW is the data warehouse sample."

The data itself seems to be for an imaginary construction supply business, producing and selling hardware and various supplies to the construction industry. The database includes data on sales transactions, production, human resources, clients and purchasing. The database schema can be found with a simple Google search or on stack overflow here. The data dictionary can be found on Microsoft's website here.

One of the challenges I kept running up against while working on projects for this portfolio was that the resulting data at the SQL level would always end up rather simplistic. Most of my projects leverage SQL mostly as a storage and staging point and don't provide much opportunity to demonstrate the range of my SQL capabilities. This led me to seek out some sample data to work with.

This is when I stumbled across AdventureWorks. These database files are far more comprehensive than the data I was producing in my projects and allowed for writing more complex queries against the database. There are plenty of resources easily available online for setting up a local database using SQL Server Management Studio and for loading the backup database file. Once the setup is complete it's simply a matter of understanding the schema's and then start writing queries.

This is really a fantastic resource for anyone new to SQL that wants to improve their skills or for folks like myself looking to produce work samples in SQL.