A great little hidden gem, and thanks for pointing it out. One bonus of using synonyms (I've just learned) is the ability to GRANT or DENY privileges on the synonym itself. This comes in handy for me because I need to make a case management d/b talk to our main accounting d/b, a level of access that worries the CFO about possible data corruption. With a synonym, it sounds like I can build a link that is explicitly prevented from updating the accounting data. This may not be the most-used tool in the box, but it will certainly come in handy from time to time.