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What Are Stored Procedures?

In the Microsoft SQL Server documentation, a stored procedure is defined as “a precompiled collection of SQL statements and optional control-of-flow statements stored under a name and processed as a unit.” Put more simply, a stored procedure is like a method or function—it performs a set of actions on the data in your database. They normally encapsulate an area of functionality, such as adding a new record to a table, or returning a specific set of information.

Stored procedures offer a number of benefits. First, because they are precompiled, they generally perform better than a straight SQL call directly from your application. Additionally, by channeling all data access in your application through a set of stored ...