MS SQL Server 2005 Released
MS SQL Server 2005 was finally released on November 7th, 2005. The previous version of the database software MS SQL Server 2000 was released in 2001. Even Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer admitted that the gap between releases was bigger than expected.
So, was the wait for the new MS SQL Server 2005 worth it? I would say yes and here is why.
Management
Microsoft added
SQL Server Management Studio as part of MS SQL Server 2005 which greatly simplifies the database management. SQL Server Management Studio is all-in-one management tool designed to manage and monitor SQL Server databases, Reporting Services, Analysis Services and Notification Services at the same time.
Security
Microsoft has significantly tightened the
MS SQL Server 2005 security. The standard installation settings of SQL Server 2005 are more secure by default. The new SQL Server 2005 security model makes the life of database administrators easier, allowing to manage permissions at a granular level. SQL Server 2005 introduces a new database object ownership model, which separates the owners and the schemas in the SQL Server administration space. SQL Server 2005 has built-in encryption capabilities and encrypts all client/server communications by default.
Scalability
SQL Server 2005 is more scalable than its predecessors. SQL Server 2005 introduces table partitioning, snapshot isolation, and 64-bit support, which greatly improves its scalability.
Developer Productivity
SQL Server 2005 introduces several new technologies boosting developer productivity.
MS SQL Server 2005 has tight integration with Visual Studio 2005 and the .NET Framework v2.0, which allows to develop database objects using any Microsoft .NET language from within SQL Server 2005. SQL Server 2005 offers better error handling through T-SQL enhancements. SQL Server 2005 also introduces a new XML data type, used to store XML documents.
Business Intelligence
MS SQL Server 2005 offers advanced analysis and reporting services and has improved data mining capabilities.
MS SQL Server 2005 Express
Microsoft are offering a light edition of MS SQL Server 2005 for free in attempt to lure back developers to use SQL Server instead of free alternatives like MySQL or PostgreSQL. This edition called MS SQL Server 2005 Express can run on one-processor server with a maximum of 1GB RAM and there is no workload governor which was part of MSDE.
Conclusion
As a conclusion MS SQL Server 2005 is a huge improvement over MS SQL Server 2000 and is worth your attention.
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