System Stored Procedures

A system stored procedure is a stored procedure with some special characteristics. These procedures, created when SQL Server is installed or upgraded, are generally used to administer SQL Server. They shield the DBA from accessing the system tables directly. Some are used to present information from the system tables, whereas others modify system tables. Information about login IDs, for instance, can be viewed with the sp_helplogins procedure and modified with sp_addlogin, sp_droplogin, and so on.

The earliest versions of SQL Server had no GUI-based administration tools, so a DBA had to have knowledge of the system stored procedures. With version 4.2 of SQL Server, Microsoft shipped two graphical administration tools, ...

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