Professional Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 Programming

Chapter 23. SMO: SQL Management Objects

It's been a long road, and we're getting closer and closer to the end of our walk through SQL Server. It is, of course, no coincidence that the chapter about how to manage your SQL Server programmatically has been held until very close to the end. Among other things, we needed to have a solid idea as to what objects we were managing and what administrative needs we had before we were ready to understand the SMO object model and talk about some of the reasons we might want to use SMO.

So, what exactly is SMO? Well, as the title of this chapter implies, SMO is an object model for managing SQL Server. Whereas connectivity models like ADO and LINQ are all about accessing data, SMO is all about access to the structure and health of your system.

In this chapter, we'll look at:

• The convoluted history of SQL Server management object models

• The basics of the SQL SMO object model

• A simple SMO example project

As with many of the SQL Server topics we cover in this book, SQL SMO is a book unto itself, so please do not expect to come out of this chapter as an expert. That said, hopefully, you will have the fundamentals down to at least the point to where you know what's possible and how much work is likely to be involved. From there, you can look for sources of more information as necessary.

The History of SQL Server Management Object Models

This is, to me — even as someone who genuinely loves the product — not an area where SQL Server shines. This is not to say ...