Visual Basic Programmer

All about SQL Server

Microsoft SQL Server Database features

The Microsoft SQL Server Database is clearly established as an industry standard, with millions of licenses sold – and Microsoft SQL Server's popularity continues to grow.

The Microsoft SQL Server Database is easy to program and maintain, easy to add or change data, and can be used by a wide variety of data aware applications. And a Microsoft Access Front End database can easily be combined with a SQL Server Back End database.

• The Microsoft SQL Server Database has been designed for medium to large sized businesses that cannot afford to spend a lot of time maintaining their computer systems.
• The Microsoft SQL Server Database is designed to provide optimum performance even during peak load times and ensures mission-critical reliability.
• Microsoft SQL Server Database has an engine that scales from handheld Windows Mobile devices to managing terabyte symmetric multiprocessor clusters.

The easiest implementation is to use a Microsoft Access Front-End. The system would then have the power of Microsoft Access and the performance and security of SQL Server.

SQL Server Features

• Online backup – An automatic scheduler can be used to back up the SQL Server Database, without having to exclude all users.
• Durable transactions – SQL Server logs transactions so that updates made within a transaction can always be recovered or rolled back to the last consistent state, if either the Client or the Server computer fails.
• Better Reliability and Data Protection – It is extremely rare that a crash will cause any loss of data with Microsoft SQL Server.
• Faster Query Processing – SQL Server runs queries on a Server, which is typically a more powerful computer than the Client workstations. Running queries on the Server increases the load on the Server more than would happen with a Microsoft Access File-Server solution, but it can reduce the network traffic substantially – especially if users are selecting small subsets of data.
• Advanced Hardware Support - Uninterruptible power supplies, hot-swappable disk drives, and multiple processors can all be added to the Server with no changes to the Client workstations.
• Integrated Windows Security – SQL Server supports Windows security accounts to authenticate users who are logging on to a Database. This means that if users are already logged onto a Windows network, their existing Windows security groups and accounts can be used to define permissions.
• Advanced Server-side programming – Microsoft SQL Server supports an SQL dialect called Transact-SQL. Used in conjunction with features such as constraints and triggers, Transact-SQL allows business and security rules to be defined on the Server. Transact-SQL can also be used to create stored procedures that run on the Server to provide flexible and secure access.

SQL Server 2008 and Visual Basic.Net

• With Common Language Runtime (CLR) integration, it is possible to code Stored Procedures, Functions, and Triggers in VB.NET.
• Tasks that were difficult to create in Transact-SQL can be easily done using VB.Net.
• VB.Net provides extensive support for string handling and regular expressions.
• VB.Net code compiles to native code with significant performance improvements.
• VB.Net provides thousands of classes and methods that can be used on the Server side.