Understanding Database Administration Differences

Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 offers several tools for database administration.

Graphical Administration

SQL Server Enterprise Manager allows easy enterprise-wide configuration and management of SQL Server and SQL Server objects. SQL Server Enterprise Manager provides a powerful scheduling engine, administrator alert capability, and a built-in replication management interface. You can also use SQL Server Enterprise Manager to:

By default, SQL Server Enterprise Manager is installed by SQL Server Setup as part of the server software on computers running Windows NT, and as part of the client software on computers running on the Windows NT and Windows 95/98 operating systems. Because SQL Server Enterprise Manager is a 32-bit application, it cannot be installed on computers running 16-bit operating systems.

Auditing

SQL Server Profiler is a graphical tool that allows system administrators to monitor engine events in Microsoft SQL Server 7.0. SQL Server Profiler captures a continuous record of server activity in real-time. SQL Server Profiler allows you to monitor events produced through SQL Server, filter events based on user-specified criteria, and direct the trace output to the screen, a file, or a table. Using SQL Server Profiler, you can replay previously captured traces. This tool helps application developers identify transactions that may be reducing the performance of an application. This can be useful when migrating an application from a file-based architecture to a client/server architecture, since the last step involves optimizing the application for its new client/server environment.

Examples of engine events include:

Data about each event can be captured and saved to a file or a SQL Server table for later analysis.

Threshold Manager

Microsoft SQL Server uses two tools to manage transaction logs in a manner equivalent to the Sybase Threshold Manager:

Rebuilding master

Sybase 4.x rebuilt its master databases using the bldmstr utility. In later versions of Sybase, the sybinit utility is used to rebuild the master database.

Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 has a Rebuild Master utility that provides the same functionality.

Graphical Query Analysis

SQL Server Query Analyzer is a graphical query tool that visually allows you to analyze the plan of a query, execute multiple queries simultaneously, view data, and obtain index recommendations. SQL Server Query Analyzer provides the Showplan option, which is used to report data retrieval methods chosen by the SQL Server query optimizer.