What is the Easy way to check connectivity to SQL Server from a client?

Here are the steps to Test the connection to a SQL Server database

• Create a new file with the . udl extension (Universal Data Link)
  
• Open the created file ⇒ A window to enter the login information opens.
  
• Fill in the connection information.
  
• Click on the "Test connection" button.
  
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• If the server is using TCP/IP, then the simple way is to just telnet to the SQL Server port and see if it connects. By default, that's port 1433, so this should work: telnet servername 1433 That will probably be appropriate in most cases. If it's using a different port, or dynamic ports (common with a named instance), then you'll need to determine which port it's currently listening on. Check SQL Server configuration manager to see if it's a specific port, or dynamic ports. If it's using dynamic ports, then as long as you don't have multiple instances on the server, netstat -abn is probably the simplest way to find what it's using. Otherwise, dig through the Windows event log or the SQL Server error log for a message indicating which port is in use by the instance. If SQL Server is using Named Pipes, then I believe if you're able to access shares on the machine, you have adequate network connectivity. This article says you can go further and try connecting to the IPC$ share: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa275787(v=sql.80).aspx net use \servernameIPC$ That's written for SQL Server 2000, but I don't imagine this aspect has changed much, if at all.
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