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Microsoft SQL Server

Microsoft SQL Server
Image:Microsoft SQL Server Logo.png
Developer: Microsoft
Latest release: 2005 / November 7, 2005
OS: Microsoft Windows
Genre: RDBMS
License: Microsoft EULA
Website: www.microsoft.com/sql/

Microsoft SQL Server is a relational database management system (RDBMS) produced by Microsoft. Its primary query language is Transact-SQL, an implementation of the ANSI/ISO standard Structured Query Language (SQL) used by both Microsoft and Sybase. SQL Server is commonly used by businesses for small- to medium-sized databases, but the past five years have seen greater adoption of the product for larger enterprise databases.

Contents

History

A giant mobile advertisement for MS SQL Server in Shanghai

A giant mobile advertisement for MS SQL Server in Shanghai

The code base for MS SQL Server (prior to version 7.0) originated in Sybase SQL Server, and was Microsoft's entry to the enterprise-level database market, competing against Oracle, IBM, and, later, Sybase itself. Microsoft, Sybase and Ashton-Tate originally teamed up to create and market the first version named SQL Server 1.0 for OS/2 (about 1989) which was essentially the same as Sybase SQL Server 3.0 on Unix, VMS, etc. Microsoft SQL Server 4.2 was shipped around 1992 (available bundled with Microsoft OS/2 version 1.3). Later Microsoft SQL Server 4.21 for Windows NT was released at the same time as Windows NT 3.1. Microsoft SQL Server v6.0 was the first version of SQL Server that was architected for NT and did not include any direction from Sybase.

About the time Windows NT was released, Sybase and Microsoft parted ways and pursued their own design and marketing schemes. Microsoft negotiated exclusive rights to all versions of SQL Server written for Microsoft operating systems. Later, Sybase changed the name of its product to Adaptive Server Enterprise to avoid confusion with Microsoft SQL Server. Until 1994 Microsoft's SQL Server carried three Sybase copyright notices as an indication of its origin.

Since parting ways, several revisions have been done independently. SQL Server 7.0 was the first true GUI based database server and was a rewrite away from the legacy Sybase code. A variant of SQL Server 2000 was the first commercial database for the Intel IA64 architecture. During this time there was a rivalry between Microsoft and Oracle for winning over the enterprise market.

The current version, Microsoft SQL Server 2005, was released in November of 2005. The launch took place alongside Visual Studio 2005. The SQL Server 2005 Express Edition is currently available for free download.[1]

In the six years since release of Microsoft's previous SQL Server product (SQL Server 2000), advancements have been made in performance, the client IDE tools, and several complementary systems that are packaged with SQL Server 2005. These include: an ETL tool (SQL Server Integration Services or SSIS), a Reporting Server, an OLAP and data mining server (Analysis Services), and several messaging technologies, specifically Service Broker and Notification Services.

Features

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Microsoft SQL Server uses a variant of SQL called T-SQL, or Transact-SQL, an implementation of SQL-92 (the ISO standard for SQL, certified in 1992) with many extensions. T-SQL mainly adds additional syntax for use in stored procedures, and affects the syntax of transaction support. (Note that SQL standards require Atomic, Consistent, Isolated, Durable or "ACID" transactions.) Microsoft SQL Server and Sybase/ASE both communicate over networks using an application-level protocol called Tabular Data Stream (TDS). The TDS protocol has also been implemented by the FreeTDS project[2] in order to allow more kinds of client applications to communicate with Microsoft SQL Server and Sybase databases. Microsoft SQL Server also supports Open Database Connectivity (ODBC). The latest release SQL Server 2005 also supports the ability to deliver client connectivity via the Web Services SOAP[3] protocol. This allows non-Windows Clients to communicate cross platform with SQL Server. Microsoft has also released a certified JDBC[4] driver to let Java Applications like BEA and IBM WebSphere communicate with Microsoft SQL Server 2000 and 2005.

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 also features automated database mirroring, failover clustering, and database snapshots.

Developing Microsoft SQL Server applications

Microsoft and other vendors provide a number of software development tools designed to allow business applications to be developed using the data stored by Microsoft SQL Server. Microsoft SQL Server 2005 now includes the common language runtime (CLR) component for Microsoft .NET. Applications developed with .NET languages such as Visual Basic can implement stored procedures and other functions. Older versions of Microsoft development tools typically use APIs to access Microsoft SQL Server functionality. Rapid application development tools such as eDeveloper by Magic Software Enterprises incorporate native database gateways for high speed database access and automatic table drill-down for the creation of quick prototype applications for viewing, editing and adding data to any table in the database.

SQL Server Express Edition

Main article: SQL Server Express

Formerly known as MSDE, Microsoft SQL Server Express is Microsoft's freely-downloadable and distributable version of its database engine; it has some technical restrictions that make it unsuited for large-scale deployments and is primarily used for prototyping or self study.

The slammer worm

Main article: SQL slammer (computer worm)

The SQL Slammer computer worm exploited a previously patched security vulnerability in MS SQL Server 2000. It caused a large Internet slowdown on 25 January 2003.

Releases

  • 1993 - SQL Server 4.21 for Windows NT
  • 1995 - SQL Server 6.0, codenamed SQL95
  • 1996 - SQL Server 6.5, codenamed Hydra
  • 1999 - SQL Server 7.0, codenamed Sphinx
  • 1999 - SQL Server 7.0 OLAP, codenamed Plato
  • 2000 - SQL Server 2000 32-bit, codenamed Shiloh (version 8.0)
  • 2003 - SQL Server 2000 64-bit, codenamed Liberty
  • 2005 - SQL Server 2005, codenamed Yukon (version 9.0)
  • Next release - SQL Server 2008, codenamed Katmai (version 10.0)

SQL Server 2008

Current event marker This article or section contains information about scheduled or expected future software.
The content may change dramatically as the software release approaches and more information becomes available.		 Software Development

The next planned version of SQL Server is SQL Server 2008,[5] code-named "Katmai",[6] due out in 2008.[7] A CTP release was made available on June 4, 2007. SQL Server 2008 aims[8] to make data management self-tuning, self organizing, and self maintaining with the development of SQL Server Always On technologies, to provide near-zero downtime. Microsoft also aims to intrinsically support many digital data formats, including pictures, audio, video and other multimedia data. In current versions, such multimedia data can be stored as BLOBs (binary large objects), but they are generic bitstreams. Intrinsic awareness of multimedia data will allow specialized functions to be performed on them. Other new data types include specialized date and time types and a Spatial data type for location-dependent data.[9] Better support for unstructured and semi-structured data is planned as well. For unstructured data as well, specialized data types, including the File type will be added.[9] According to Paul Flessner, senior Vice President, Server Applications, Microsoft Corp., the next release of SQL Server can be a data storage backend for different varieties of data: XML, email, time/calendar, file, document, spatial, etc as well as perform search, query, analysis, sharing, and synchronization across all data types.[6]

On the management side, the SQL Server 2008 will include the Declarative Management Framework which allows configuring policies and constrains, on the entire database or certain tables, declaratively.[9] For data warehousing needs, SQL Server includes better compression features, which also helps in improving scalability. It also includes Resource Governor that allows reserving resources for certain users or workflows. SQL Server Katmai will support the ADO.NET Entity Framework and the reporting tools, replication, and data definition will be build around the Entity Data Model.[10] SQL Server Reporting Services will gain charting capabilities from the integration of the data visualization products from Dundas Data Visualization Inc., which was acquired by Microsoft.[11]

Versions and Editions

SQL Server 7.0

  • Enterprise Edition
  • Developer Edition
  • Standard Edition

SQL Server 2000

SQL Server 2005

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