Run SQL Queries on Excel Sheets

Data in an organization is typically stored on multiple platforms and
formats. A lot of useful data, however, is stored in non-traditional databases,
such as e-mail (plain text) and Excel worksheets; besides DBMS and RDBMS
systems, like Access, DB2, SQL Server and Oracle. Analysis of such data becomes
difficult in the absence of a method to collect them at one place without
needing to first convert them. Here's where a feature like MS SQL Server's
'linked server' helps you perform centralized information analysis from
disparately stored data.

True, there is another feature in MS SQL that can be used-Replication. But
this is generally not advisable especially when the data sets are large.
Replication is used where there are smaller data sets and the subset of the data
to be used is well known. What Replication does is, it moves the data from one
database to the other. Whereas in linked servers, the data is not moved anywhere
else, instead it is directly accessed or modified from the original location
itself. In this article, we'll discuss about linked server and how you can make
use of it in a typical scenario. 

What is a linked server?
Linked server is an alias on your SQL
Server instance that points to an external data source that can be anything from
a plain text file to another RDBMS database. This link works over an OLE or ODBC
transport layer. The database can be accessed directly from the SQL Server. You
can code your applications to fetch data from an external database, using this
link. This technique is similar to the 'linked table' feature in MS Access. 

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