Introduction

Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2005 is a next-generation data management and analysis solution that helps organizations deliver increased value to their businesses by decreasing the amount of effort that is required to maintain reliable systems, increasing the speed of software development, and enabling companies to take full advantage of their information assets. Information Services organizations continue to struggle in an effort to balance delivering new capabilities to the business while maintaining the existing business infrastructure.

SQL Server 2005 provides a comprehensive data platform that will help organizations of any size to:

• Build, deploy, and manage enterprise applications that are more secure, scalable, and reliable.
• Maximize Information Services productivity by reducing the complexity of building, deploying, and managing database applications.
• Share data across multiple platforms, applications, and devices to make it easier to connect internal and external systems.
• Control costs without sacrificing performance, availability, scalability, or security.
• Deliver increased business insights to a broader set of users across the organization.

SQL Server 2005 brings significant enhancements to enterprise data management, developer productivity, and business intelligence.

• Enhancements in the area of enterprise data management enable users and Information Services professionals across your organization to benefit from reduced application downtime, increased scalability and performance, and tight security controls.
• Developer productivity enhancements fundamentally change the way that database applications are developed and deployed, thereby enabling faster development of more reliable, more secure applications.
• Business intelligence enhancements deliver an end-to-end platform with integrated analytics including online analytical processing (OLAP), data mining, extract, transformation, and load (ETL) tools, data warehousing, and reporting functionality.

SQL Server 2005 includes the following tools.

• Relational database. Secure, reliable, scalable, highly available relational database engine with improved performance and support for structured and unstructured XML data.
• Replication Services. Data replication for distributed or mobile data processing applications, high systems availability, scalable concurrency with secondary data stores for enterprise reporting solutions, and integration with heterogeneous systems, including existing Oracle databases.
• Notification Services. Advanced notification capabilities for the development and deployment of scalable applications that can deliver personalized, timely information updates to a variety of connected and mobile devices.
• Integration Services. Extract, transform, and load capabilities for data warehousing and enterprise-wide data integration.
• Analysis Services. Online analytical processing (OLAP) and data mining capabilities for the rapid, sophisticated analysis of large and complex datasets using multidimensional storage.
• Reporting Services. A comprehensive solution for creating, managing, and delivering both traditional paper reports and interactive Web-based reports.
• Management tools. SQL Server provides an integrated environment for accessing, configuring, managing, and administering all components of SQL Server.
• Development tools. SQL Server 2005 offers tight integration with Microsoft Visual Studio® 2005. This provides development teams that are building data centric applications with a platform that enables the most productive and collaborative development of dependable and relevant solutions. Every major component in SQL Server ships with its own object model and set of APIs to extend the data system in any direction, even those that are unique to your business.

Requirements

32-Bit

• 600-megahertz (MHz) Pentium III-compatible or faster processor; 1-gigahertz (GHz) or faster processor recommended
• Microsoft Windows 2000 Server with Service Pack (SP) 4 or later; Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition, Enterprise Edition, or Datacenter Edition with SP 1 or later; Windows Small Business Server 2003 with SP 1 or later
• 512 megabytes (MB) of RAM or more; 1 gigabyte (GB) or more recommended
• Approximately 350 MB of available hard-disk space for the recommended installation
• Approximately 425 MB of additional available hard-disk space for SQL Server Books Online, SQL Server Mobile Books Online, and sample databases
• CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive
• Super VGA (1,024x768) or higher-resolution video adapter and monitor
• Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 SP1 or later
• For Reporting Services, you need Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) 5.0 or later, and ASP.NET 2.0 or later

64-Bit

• 1-GHz AMD Opteron, AMD Athlon 64, Intel Xeon with Intel EM64T support, Intel Pentium IV with EM64T support processor or faster
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard x64 Edition, Enterprise x64 Edition, or Datacenter x64 Edition with SP 1 or later
• 512 MB of RAM or more; 1 GB or more recommended
• Approximately 350 MB of available hard-disk space for the recommended installation
• Approximately 425 MB of additional available hard-disk space for SQL Server Books Online, SQL Server Mobile Books Online, and sample databases
• CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive
• Super VGA (1,024x768) or higher-resolution video adapter and monitor
• Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 SP1 or later
• For Reporting Services, you need Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) 5.0 or later, and ASP.NET 2.0 or later

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