If you work with a number of different instances and have lots of connections open in Management Studio (SSMS) it can be kind of hard to remember which connection is which. Fortunately all of the information you need is readily available.

Connections in the Object Explorer

Notice that for each connection there is the instance name (red box), the version of SQL Server (green box) and the name of the login connected (orange box).

Connections in the query window

There are few places we can find information about query window connections.

The Status Bar

1. Number of connections in this query window. (Yes you can have more than one.)
2. Instance name and version.
3. Login name that made the connection.
4. Database connected to.
5. How long the last query run took.
6. How many rows were returned by the last query run.

 
The Tab heading

Here we have the query/file name (red box), login name (orange box) and the SPID (green box). This isn’t my favorite place to find connection information because it abreviates so much but it does have the SPID which is highly useful.

Another way to see the tab information is the small arrow dropdown in the top right corner of the query tabs. This drop down lists the tabs currently open.

Basically it’s the same information as the tabs but you can see more of them at once.

Changing the information

And of course in the settings you can change the information shown in the status bar and in the tab heading.

Filed under: Documentation, Microsoft SQL Server, SQLServerPedia Syndication, SSMS Tagged: connections, microsoft sql server, SSMS