Using SQL Server Management Studio

Donald Symmons 2,856 Reputation points
2022-05-06T21:31:11.523+00:00

May I please ask, if using SQL Server Management Studio can work without having SQL Server installed in a development computer?
I have been trying to connect using SQL Server Management Studio but I keep getting error
"A network-related or instance-specific error occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server"

SQL Server
SQL Server
A family of Microsoft relational database management and analysis systems for e-commerce, line-of-business, and data warehousing solutions.
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  1. Erland Sommarskog 101.4K Reputation points MVP
    2022-05-07T09:34:27.55+00:00

    Yes, you can use SSMS without having SQL Server installed locally. You can connect to any SQL Server instance you can find on the network.

    You say that you want to connect to your production server from your development machine. I think you need to discuss how to do this with the DBA or your IT department. We don't know any details about your environment, so we cannot really help you with those details. However, it is not impossible that the network is configured in such a way that you cannot connect directly to the SQL Server instance from your development machine for security reasons.

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  1. Naomi 7,361 Reputation points
    2022-05-06T21:36:07.327+00:00

    Are you using Windows Authentication or SQL Server authentication?

    You don't have to have a local instance of SQL Server on the development machine provided that you can access your stage or production server from the development computer.