Beginning T-SQL with Microsoft® SQL Server® 2005 and 2008

Chapter 12. T-SQL Programming Objects

SQL Server is an enormously capable and powerful relational data store. In general, SQL Server manages transactions and enforces checks and rules to protect the integrity of related records and values. You've seen how the query optimizer makes intelligent decisions and uses indexes to make queries run fast and efficiently. Now we're going to take SQL Server to the next level. Most data is accessed through business applications. SQL Server can be more than just an idle medium for storing this data. A well-designed business solution uses the capabilities of an active database server, programming objects, and other components to distribute the workload and minimize unnecessary network traffic.

I want to take you on a brief tour of history so that you can appreciate the impact of the features we're about to discuss. In the 1980s and early 1990s, PC-based applications ran only on desktops. If data could be shared across networks, it was simply stored in files managed by the file system. Applications supported a small number of users and quickly choked low-bandwidth networks as they moved all of their data to each desktop for processing. Desktop database applications sprang up like weeds in a new garden as inexpensive business applications became available — but the industry quickly hit the technology wall. In the past decade, the PC platform came of age with the advent of client/server database systems. In a nutshell, the enabling technology behind ...