Microsoft SQL Server version 7.0 is a defining release that builds on the solid foundation established by SQL Server version 6.5. As the most robust database for the family of Windows operating systems, SQL Server is the RDBMS of choice for a broad spectrum of corporate customers and ISVs who are building business applications. Customer needs and requirements have driven significant product innovations in ease of use, reliability, scalability, and data warehousing.
SQL Server 7.0 was designed with several goals in mind:
Innovations enable SQL Server 7.0 to lead several of the database industry’s fastest growing application categories, including data warehousing, line-of-business applications, mobile computing, branch automation, and e-commerce.
Innovations with which SQL Server 7.0 leads the database industry include:
Universal Data Access is a platform for developing multitier, enterprise applications that require access to diverse relational and nonrelational data. This collection of software components interacts using a common set of system-level interfaces called OLE DB, the Microsoft open specification for low-level interfacing with data. OLE DB is the next generation successor to the industry standard ODBC data access method.
OLE DB replaces DB-Library as the internal interface for all SQL Server database operations. OLE DB enables heterogeneous queries that use the SQL Server query processor to perform with the same high level of performance as queries to the SQL Server storage engine.
Customers are looking for solutions to business problems. Most database solutions bring multiple layers of cost and complexity. The Microsoft strategy is to make SQL Server the easiest database for building, managing, and deploying business applications. This means providing a fast and simple programming model for developers, eliminating database administration for standard operations, and providing sophisticated tools for more complex operations.
SQL Server 7.0 lowers the total cost of ownership through features like multiserver, single-console management; event-based job execution and alerting; integrated security; and administrative scripting. This release also frees the database administrator for more sophisticated aspects of the job by automating routine tasks. Combining these powerful management facilities with new autoconfiguration features, SQL Server 7.0 is the ideal choice for branch automation and embedded database applications.
Customers make investments in database management systems in the form of the applications written to that database and the education that it takes for deployment and management. That investment must be protected: as the business grows, the database must grow to handle more data, transactions, and users. Customers also want to protect investments as they scale database applications down to laptops and up to branch offices.
To meet these needs, Microsoft delivers a single database engine that scales from a mobile laptop computer running the Microsoft Windows 95 and Windows 98 operating systems, to terabyte symmetric multiprocessor clusters running Windows NT Server, Enterprise Edition. All of these systems maintain the security and reliability demanded by mission-critical business systems.
New in SQL Server 7.0 is a low-memory footprint version with multisite replication capabilities. It is well suited to the growing needs of the mobile computing marketplace.
Other features such as dynamic row-level locking, intra-query parallelism, distributed query, and very large database (VLDB) enhancements make SQL Server 7.0 the ideal choice for high-end online transaction processing (OLTP) and data warehousing systems.
Transaction processing systems remain a key component of corporate database infrastructures. Companies are also investing heavily in improving understanding of their data. Microsoft’s strategy is to reduce the cost and complexity of data warehousing while making the technology accessible to a wider audience.
Microsoft has established a comprehensive approach to the entire process of data warehousing. The goal is to make it easier to build and design cost-effective data warehousing solutions through a combination of technologies, services, and vendor alliances.
The Microsoft Alliance for Data Warehousing is a coalition that brings together the industry’s leaders in data warehousing and applications. The Microsoft Data Warehousing Framework is a set of programming interfaces designed to simplify the integration and management of data warehousing solutions.
New product innovations in SQL Server 7.0 improve the data warehousing process with: