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. 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 some extensions. 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.

Get the real-world guidelines, expert tips, and rock-solid guidance to take your SQL Server implementation to the next level. These SQL Server best practices draw on the extensive experience and expertise from respected developers and engineers at Microsoft, who walk you through the specifics on solving particularly difficult issues.

On large tables, DBCC SHOWCONTIG can take a significant amount of time. Restricting DML operations during this time can be prohibitive for the application. You can work around this problem in SQL Server 2000, if the table has a clustered index. This problem has been resolved in SQL Server 2005. In SQL Server 2005, all usages of DBCC SHOWCONTIG acquire an IS lock on the table, thereby allowing concurrent DML operations.

Moreover, in SQL Server 2005, it is recommended to use the table valued dynamic management function sys.dm_db_index_physical_stats instead of the DBCC SHOWCONTIG command.

To begin installing your SQL Server 2005 cluster, you will need the installation CD or DVD. You can either install it directly from the media, or copy the install files from the media to the current active node of the cluster, and run the setup program from there. I want to point out the options to "Create a SQL Server failover cluster" and to "Create an Analysis Server failover cluster" (currently grayed out). Since we are creating a SQL Server 2005 cluster, you must select the "Create a SQL Server failover cluster." If you are going to install Analysis Services (not covered in this example) then you must select "Create an Analysis Server failover cluster."

This article describes the SQLIOSim utility. You can use this utility to perform tests on disk subsystems. These tests simulate read, write, checkpoint, backup, sort, and read-ahead activities for Microsoft SQL Server 2005.

The SQLIOSim utility has been upgraded from the SQLIOStress utility. The SQLIOSim utility more accurately simulates the I/O patterns of Microsoft SQL Server 2005, of SQL Server 2000, and of SQL Server 7.0. The I/O patterns of these versions of SQL Server resemble one another. The SQLIOStress utility has been used to test SQL Server 2005 I/O requirements for many years.