Chapter 2
Learning the Tools of the Trade
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS CHAPTER:
- Which tools are provided with SQL Server
- What each tool does, and how to access it
- How to configure and connect to a SQL Server instance
- About the development environments for developing in different SQL Server components
Now that you know something about the many types of objects that exist in SQL Server, you probably should get to know something about how to find these objects and how to monitor your system in general.
In this chapter, you look into the tools that serve SQL Server’s base functionality, mostly having to do with the relational database engine. The tools for managing the add-on service are covered in more detail in the chapters where each of those services is the main topic. Some of them offer only a small number of highly specialized tasks; others do many different things. Most of them have been around in SQL Server in one form or another for a long time.
The tools you see in this chapter include:
- SQL Server Books Online
- SQL Server Configuration Manager
- SQL Server Management Studio
- Business Intelligence Developer Studio
- SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) and the Import/Export Wizard
- SQL Server Reporting Services
- Reporting Services Configuration Manager
- Bulk Copy Program (bcp)
- Profiler
- sqlcmd
- PowerShell
GETTING HELP WITH BOOKS ONLINE
Is Books Online (BOL) a tool? I think so. Let’s face it, it doesn’t matter how many times you read this or any other book on SQL Server; you’re ...
