Need help with ODB Database over VPN I use an ODB SQL Database for electronic components.
The Database comes from Omnify which a PLM system that is used to store all the electronic components that we use. The database is accessed using Altium Designer which is a schematic and PCB layout program.
The database connection does work, but there are several issues with it:
I have to access it over VPN which slows everything down.
I cannot change in data on the Omnify side because I am not an administrator so I have to ask someone to do this. Also I do not believe there is a way to mass populate fields that need to have the same value.
So I think it would be better if I had a local copy of the database so I would not have use VPN and I could also quickly and easily make changes to it. I can access the database in Excel save it as an Excel file and make changes to it, but any new Omnify entries would have to added manually. So Ideally I need something that links to the live database but keeps a local copy that I can edit and adds new entries as they become available but does not change the edits I made to existing entries. I am not sure if such a thing exists. Thanks for any advice.
I believe you're referring to a product that uses a Microsoft SQL Server database (but if that's incorrect please add tags to your question with the appropriate database).
In Microsoft SQL Server there a multitude of ways you can move and sync data between databases and servers. It sounds like a solution you'd want would be dependent on one of the options Microsoft offers.
One option that's been around a while is called Replication. Here's the Microsoft docs on it: SQL Server Replication
There's different kinds of replication depending on your needs, but Transactional Replication is pretty popular because of its ability to be near real time in sync. It's also possible to do two-way aka bi-directional replication (so when you make changes at the target server, it re-syncs them back to the source server).
I'm assuming you're an engineer since you mentioned PLM and PCB (I used to be a software developer for an electronics manufacturer in a past life :). You'll likely want help from your IT / Software Dev team setting this up.
Other technologies for moving data in Microsoft SQL Server are:

AlwaysOn Availability Groups
SSIS
Log Shipping

But my personal recommendation from experience and based on your use case would be Transactional Replication.