Professional Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 Programming

Chapter 1. Being Objective: Re-Examining Objects in SQL Server

If you're someone who's read my Professional level titles before, you'll find we're continuing the path we started in Professional SQL Server 2005 Programming and have the "Professional" become a little bit more "Pro" in level. That said, I still want to touch on all the basic objects and also address some things like new data types and additional objects that are new with SQL Server 2008.

So, What Exactly Do We Have Here?

Seems like sort of a silly question doesn't it? If you're here reading this title, you obviously know we have a database, but what makes up a database? It is my hope that, by now (meaning by the time you're ready for a professional level title), you've come to realize that a Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) is actually much more than data. Today's advanced RDBMSs not only store your data, they also manage that data for you, restricting what kind of data can go into the system, and also facilitating getting data out of the system. If all you want is to tuck the data away somewhere safe, you can use just about any data storage system. RDBMSs allow you to go beyond the storage of the data into the realm of defining what that data should look like — this has never been more true than with SQL Server 2008. Improved support for hierarchies means that you can store hierarchical data in a far more native way, and still access it very efficiently. The new Policy Based Management feature allows you ...