United States   Change   |   All Microsoft Sites

Home - SQL Server 2005

Microsoft Home  |  Servers and Tools

Manageability

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 redefines the capabilities that customers should expect from their Database Management System. SQL Server 2005 is designed to help organizations reliably and securely manage enterprise servers. By automating routine tasks, SQL Server 2005 helps lower the cost of ongoing maintenance with increased efficiency and provides deeper insight into system health for monitoring, tuning and optimization.

  • Enterprise Class

    With its powerful integrated Management Console and SQL Surface Area Configuration tool, SQL Server 2005 is enterprise-ready. 

  • Insight Driven

    Proactively manage with SQL Server 2005 which provides deeper visibility into the performance and operations of your system.

  • Increased Efficiency

    SQL Server 2005 enables you to improve process and lower maintenance costs by automating routine administrative tasks. 

  • Learn more about Manageability Features

Learn More

Highlights

Enterprise Class

As an enterprise data management platform, SQL Server 2005 provides an integrated management console that enables database administrators (DBAs) anywhere in your organization to monitor, manage, and tune all of the databases and associated instances of all servers across your enterprise. SQL Server 2005 is secure out of the box when you install it because all but the most essential features are either not installed by default or disabled if they are installed, thereby limiting the exposed surface area of the server. The SQL Server Surface Area Configuration tool empowers the DBA to control which features are enabled, which ensures that potentially unused features are not enabled and left in an unprotected state.

SQL Surface Area Configuration tool empowers the DBA to control which features are enabled, which ensures that potentially unused features are not enabled and left in an unprotected state.

  • The exposed area of the server has been significantly reduced by new security features, by changes to initial default settings, and by a new general practice called "off by default."

  • At installation, many new features and some old features are turned off and disallowed until explicitly enabled by the DBA.

SQL Server Configuration Manager enables management of general server settings

  • Service settings can be managed from any location.

  • Changing service management does not require a connection.

  • Changing the password does not require a service restart.

  • Settings are exposed for quick review and troubleshooting.

  • Scripting settings through SQL-CM.

SQL Server Configuration Manager (and the Computer Management MMC applet) is a great tool for scaling administration as it can connect to remote servers and effectively delegate restricted functionality to an "operations" administrator without providing this administrator with a more complex tool.

Insight Driven

SQL Server 2005 provides deep visibility into the performance and operations of the systems for end-to end service monitoring, and enables you to quickly isolate problems and proactively manage multiple services.

SQL Server Management Studio integrates database administration and the database development environment

Each dialog box in SQL Server Management studio has multiple options that can be used to execute the command.

  • Non-modal, resizable dialog boxes

  • When browsing a large number of objects, you can set object filters to reduce the number of objects that are displayed.

  • At both the server level and the database level, there are a series of predefined reports that help to determine server activity, configuration options, performance statistics, transaction log shipping status, and a variety of change.

  • Integration with source control

  • Multiple query execution window types

  • Highly customizable query execution windows

SQL Server Profiler correlates what was happening across the server as a whole when certain events executed

  • By using Database Engine Tuning Advisor (DTA), database owners can profile and optionally tune a workload for their database if granted permission.

  • The Replay health monitoring option enables you to cancel operations that exceed a configurable time limit.

  • A number of new event categories that relate to the new functionality provided in the SQL Server 2005 Database Engine have been added, such as the Broker, CLR, and Query Notifications categories.

Database Engine Tuning Advisor adds a more flexible environment for tuning

  • DTA allows multiple databases to be tuned from the same workload.

  • DTA enables you to collect the correct workload from your application by using SQL Server Profiler, and then submit the workload to DTA for tuning.

  • DTA generates partition function and partition scheme recommendations.

Dynamic management views

Dynamic management views (DMVs) provide greater transparency and visibility into the database and a powerful infrastructure for proactive monitoring of database health and performance.

SQL Server MOM Pack

SQL Server Management Pack for MOM provides end-to-end service management of line-of-business applications for greater visibility

  • Integrates application, client, server, and synthetic transaction monitoring in a single solution

  • Manages business-critical services such as Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SharePoint, and Active Directory

  • Manages a wide range of line-of-business (LOB) applications that use Microsoft Windows Server, SQL Server, .NET, and Internet Information Services (IIS), as technology building blocks

  • Integrates synthetic transaction monitoring of the end user perspective and proactive monitoring of infrastructure components to manage and improve the end-to-end delivery of IT services.

Increased Efficiency

SQL Server 2005 exposes all the management functionality of the database so you can extend these objects to automate routine administrative tasks, allowing you to focus on high-value tasks and lower the cost of ongoing maintenance.

SQL Server 2005 provides an extensible management infrastructure that can be easily programmed by using SQL Management Objects (SMO)

  • SMO enables users to customize and extend their management environment.

  • SMO enables the creation of a command-line tool that automates a number of database maintenance tasks.

SQLCMD allows the creation of reusable scripts by the introduction of variables that can be passed from the command line to the script

  • SQLCMD allows scripts to be run against multiple servers by the introduction of a connection command.

  • SQLCMD allows the creation of a script that collects data, or performs administrative tasks against multiple servers.

  • SQLCMD includes rich support for XML.

SQL Agent

  • SQL Agent enables you to schedule any action at any time.

  • SQL Server 2005 supports raising Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) events for various actions that occur inside the database. By creating a WMI event alert, the system administrator can choose to either execute a job or notify an operator.

Maintenance Plan Designer

  • The maintenance plan designer enables you to create workflows for your maintenance tasks.

  • SQL Server 2005 adds a more transparent mechanism for discovering what options are being used in a given maintenance plan.

Manageability Features

SQL Server 2005 focuses on making it simpler and easier to deploy, manage and optimize enterprise data and analytical applications. As a trusted data management platform it provides a single management console that enables data administrators anywhere in the organization to monitor, manage and tune all of the databases and associated services across your enterprise. Management tools include:

  • an integrated management tool suite with support for the automation of routine tasks

  • proactive systems for monitoring system health and performance

  • enhanced performance tuning tools

  • greater programmability

  • table and index partitioning to improve manageability and performance

Integrated Management

Management Studio: SQL Server Management Studio combines the features of Enterprise Manager, Query Analyzer, and Analysis Manager in previous releases of SQL Server, into a single Environment. In addition, SQL Server Management Studio works with all components of SQL Server such as Reporting Services, SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS), SQL Server Mobile, and Notification Services.

Proactive Health and Performance Monitoring

Dynamic Management Views (DMV): SQL Server 2005 exposes more than 70 new measures of internal database performance and resource usage from memory, locking, and scheduling to transactions and network and disk I/O.

Enhanced Performance Tuning

  • SQL Profiler: SQL Profiler captures server events for real-time diagnosis of performance issues. The main task is to trace an activity and correlate the trace with performance counters so that trace information can be adequately analyzed and issues can be quickly diagnosed.

  • Database Tuning Advisor (DTA): The Database Tuning Advisor (DTA) has the ability to suggest index and table partition changes to a database structure.

Greater Programmability

SQL Management Objects (SMO): SQL Management Objects (SMO) is a new set of programming objects that expose the functionality of the SQL Server database. SMO is implemented as a Microsoft® .NET Framework assembly and can be used to automate repetitive or common SQL Server administrative tasks, such as programmatically retrieving configuration settings, creating new databases, applying Transact-SQL scripts, creating SQL Server Agent jobs, and scheduling backups.

Improved Manageability and Performance

Table and Index Partitioning: Table and index partitioning eases the management of databases by facilitating the management of the database in smaller, more manageable chunks. SQL Server 2005 provides a new capability for the partitioning of tables across filegroups in a database. Horizontal partitioning allows for the division of a table into smaller groupings based on a partitioning scheme.

News and Reviews

Technologies

Try SQL Server

Download the beta software

Buy SQL Server