Contoso Data Generator is a free open source tool to generate sample Contoso databases on SQL Server based on a star schema.

You can customize the database generated in size and data distribution, developing your version of the Contoso database.

You can use the content available in different ways:

  • Download an existing, ready-to-use Contoso database. You get a backup that you can restore on a SQL Server or Azure SQL instance. No programming skills are required. Just download from the latest release: Contoso databases with different sizes are already available for download.
  • Produce your own Contoso database. Download the executable, customize the parameters, and run the scripts to control the content of the database in terms of volume and data distribution. You must alter configuration files and the PowerShell scripts. No knowledge of SQL or C# is required.
  • Customize the C# code of the tool to implement new features. There is a Visual Studio solution with a C# project running in .NET Core 3.1. You must be a C# developer to partake in this game.

The content of the database is based on the Microsoft Contoso sample database. We added stores and customers using other files obtained by random data generation services. You can customize all these files and produce any content you want.

The transactions generated in the Sales table are not entirely random: there are parameters used to control the distribution of transactions over products, customers, stores, and time. You can spend many nights playing with these parameters, and obtain different databases that can produce trends and exceptions you can analyze for your demos.