Q
I'm looking for shareware or an inexpensive tool that will let me maintain a SQL Server data dictionary. I've used sophisticated data-modeling tools that provide this functionality. However, I'm now in an organization that has many SQL Server databases but no data dictionary and no budget to buy expensive tools. Do you know of a poor man's version of a data dictionary tool?

A
Although a free or inexpensive shareware tool might exist, I'm not familiar with it. However, I suggest that you try using SQL Server 2000 extended properties. In SQL Server 2000, Microsoft added extended properties to let you define and manipulate user-defined properties on various database objects. You can use these user-defined properties to add metadata to your database that you can use to create a homegrown data dictionary integrated directly into SQL Server.

You manage these properties by using the system stored procedures sp_addextendedproperty, sp_updateextendedproperty, and sp_dropextendedproperty. In addition, you can use the system function fn_listextendedproperty() to retrieve an existing property value. Microsoft uses extended properties to populate and manage the description value that you see associated with a column in the design view of a table in SQL Server Enterprise Manager.

Note that using these stored procedures and the fn_listextendedproperty() function to create and manage extended properties isn't intuitive. The SQL Server Books Online topic "Property Management" gives you only basic information about extended properties.