SQL Server 2005 Features at a Glance

Purpose

The purpose of this article is to give you an overview  of several key enhancements in SQL Server 2005.

Key Features

SQL Server 2005 includes several key enhancements as listed below:

• Enterprise data management

• Developer productivity

• Business intelligence.

Enterprise Data Management

This feature in SQL Server 2005 has the following benefits:

High Availability

Failover clustering and database mirroring technology in SQL Server 2005 will enable enterprises to deliver highly reliable, available applications to employees, customers, and partners.

Management Tools

SQL Server 2005 introduces an integrated suite of management tools and management application programming interfaces (APIs) to provide ease of use, manageability, and support for operating large-scale SQL Server deployments.

Security Enhancements

SQL Server 2005 has been designed to help provide the highest level of security for enterprise data through features such as database encryption, more secure default settings, password policy enforcement, granular permissions control, and an enhanced security model.

Scalability

Scalability advancements in SQL Server 2005 include table partitioning, replication enhancements, and 64-bit support.

Developer Productivity

Developer Productivity in SQL Server 2005 is a key enhancement for database developers and facilitate them with the following features:

Common Language Runtime (CLR) Integration

SQL Server 2005 introduces the capability to develop database objects using any Microsoft .NET language.

Deep XML IntegrationSQL Server 2005 delivers a new XML data type, enabling the storage of XML fragments or documents in SQL Server databases.

Transact-SQL Enhancements

New query types and the capability to use error handling in transactions provide developers with more flexibility and control in SQL Server query development.

SQL Service Broker

SQL Service Broker provides an innovative distributed asynchronous application framework for new levels of scalability.

Business Intelligence

Business Intelligence can be described as following:

Analysis Services

Analysis Services delivers extensions to the scalability, manageability, reliability, availability, and programmability of data warehousing, business intelligence, and line-of-business solutions.

Data Transformation Services (DTS)

A complete redesign of the DTS architecture and tools provides developers and database administrators with increased flexibility and manageability.

Reporting Services

Reporting Services is a new report server and tool set for building, managing, and deploying enterprise reports.

Data Mining

Data mining is enhanced with four new algorithms as well as improved data modeling and manipulation tools.

Next StepRead about what’s new in SQL Server 2005