Five Things to Know about MS SQL Brought to you by Accede Holdings Pty. LTD.

Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) reigns as

a standard in database management. Since then, most

companies organized their data into tables and grouped

them as relations. Many systems came out then and some of

which are still popular today like Oracle, My SQL, SQL Server

and MS SQL among others. These systems maybe differ in

terms of interface, language support, and licensing. Overall, they are powerful tools that can help you

run and create applications for your business. For now, let’s get to know MS SQL.

From Sybase SQL to Microsoft SQL 2000

It all began when Sybase sold its code base for SQL server to

Microsoft. This event marked the release of version 7.0 and the

partnership that will launch many SQL versions. The collaboration

stopped when Microsoft created its own operating system

(Windows NT). Since then, they negotiated SQL exclusive rights to

Sybase. The latter also changed the name of its product to

Adaptive Server Enterprise to avoid confusion. After years of

development, they finally released SQL Server 2000 making it their

first product replacing the original Sybase code.

What is it for?

MS SQL is used for web applications on a Windows platform such as

.NET and ASP. It is also applicable for many content management

systems (CMS) and other scripts. Its primary function is to retrieve

and store data as requested by other software applications

whether it is in a local network or the internet.

MS SQL Features and Capabilities

According to experts, here are some of the features

you can get from using MS SQL:

High Performance and Availability

Database mirroring, mailing and snapshots

CLR integration

Service Broker

DDL triggers

Ranking functions

Row version-based isolation levels

XML integration

Buffer management

Logging and Transaction

Concurrency and locking

Replication and Analysis services

Notification and Integration services

Full text search service

Stored procedures

Triggers and Views

Sub-SELECTs (i.e. nested SELECTs)

Which edition should I use?

Microsoft created SQL servers for mainstream and

specialized editions. Each one of them has unique set of

features and targets different kinds of users. Let’s meet

some of them:

SQL Server Enterprise Edition – this edition includes both

the core database engine and add-on services. They also

included tools for creating and managing SQL server

clusters. This particular edition can support 8 physical

processors with 2 TB of memory. They somehow

improved it to 160 processors when they released SQL

Server 2012 Enterprise Edition.

SQL Server Express Edition – it is a scaled down, free version of SQL server with core database engine.

Even with no limitations on users and database supported, it can only use 1 processor with 10GB

database files. Prior to this, they released two additional editions in the original Express Edition. The first

one is SQL Server Express with Tools, which includes SQL Server Management Studio Basic. The second

one is SQL Server Express with Advanced Services adds full-text search capability and reporting services.

Azure – it is the cloud-based version of MS SQL server that offers data-storage capabilities as part of

Azure Services Platform. Unlike other cloud-based databases, SQL database allows users to create

relational queries against stored data. It also uses a special version of MS SQL server as its backend.

SQL Server Developer Edition - this edition includes the same features as SQL Server 2012 Enterprise

Edition, but has limited license. Its license only allows users to use it for development and testing, and

not as production server. Students can download this free of charge as a part of Microsoft's DreamSpark

program.

MS SQL versus other RDBMS

Aside from the fact that MS SQL is a “paid” system, its

features and capabilities are almost the same as

compared with other RDBMS most especially My SQL.

The decision of what system to use will always depend on

your needs and budget constraints. However, we can take

advantage any of these database management systems as

long as we have a good general database design and implementation.

Sources:

http://accede.com.au/our-services/mssql-database-development-integration/

https://blog.udemy.com/oracle-vs-mysql-vs-sql-server/

http://www.host-shopper.com/what-is-ms-sql.html

http://www.mssqltips.com/sqlservertip/1920/microsoft-sql-server-vs-mysql/

http://itxdesign.com/mysql-vs-mssql/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_SQL_Server

http://www.tutorialspoint.com/sql/sql-databases.htm