Administration Architecture

Each version of Microsoft® SQL Server™ seeks to automate or eliminate some of the repetitive work done by database administrators in earlier versions of SQL Server. Because database administrators are typically among the people most highly trained in database issues at each site, this frees a valuable resource to spend more time working on database design and application data access issues.

The administration of SQL Server exhibits these characteristics:

• The SQL Server version 7.0 database server reduces administration work in many environments by being more dynamic in its use of resources than earlier versions of SQL Server. The server acquires system resources such as memory and disk space automatically when needed, and frees the resources when they are no longer required. While large OLTP systems with critical performance needs are still monitored by trained administrators, SQL Server 7.0 can also be used to implement smaller desktop or workgroup databases that do not require constant administrator attention.
• SQL Server provides a set of graphical tools that allow administrators to perform administrative tasks easily and efficiently.
• SQL Server provides a set of services that allow administrators to schedule the automatic execution of repetitive tasks.
• SQL Server can program the server to handle exception conditions, or to at least send e-mail or pages to the on-duty administrator.
• SQL Server publishes the same administration Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that are used by the SQL Server utilities. These APIs support all of the administration tasks of SQL Server. This allows developers of applications that use SQL Server as their data store to completely shield users from the administration of SQL Server.