History of the SQL Server

Genesis

The code base for MS SQL Server (prior to version 7.0) originated in Sybase SQL Server, and was Microsoft's entry to the enterprise-level database market, competing against Oracle, IBM, and, later, Sybase. Microsoft, Sybase and Ashton-Tate originally teamed up to create and market the first version named SQL Server 1.0 for OS/2 (about 1989) which was essentially the same as Sybase SQL Server 3.0 on Unix, VMS, etc. Microsoft SQL Server 4.2 was shipped around 1992 (available bundled with IBM OS/2 version 1.3). Later Microsoft SQL Server 4.21 for Windows NT was released at the same time as Windows NT 3.1. Microsoft SQL Server v6.0 was the first version designed for NT, and did not include any direction from Sybase.

About the time Windows NT was released, Sybase and Microsoft parted ways and each pursued their own design and marketing schemes. Microsoft negotiated exclusive rights to all versions of SQL Server written for Microsoft operating systems. Later, Sybase changed the name of its product to Adaptive Server Enterprise to avoid confusion with Microsoft SQL Server. Until 1994, Microsoft's SQL Server carried three Sybase copyright notices as an indication of its origin.

Since parting ways, several revisions have been done independently. SQL Server 7.0 was a rewrite from the legacy Sybase code. It was succeeded by SQL Server 2000, which was the first edition to be launched in a variant for the IA-64 architecture.

In the ten years since release of Microsoft's previous SQL Server product (SQL Server 2000), advancements have been made in performance, the client IDE tools, and several complementary systems that are packaged with SQL Server 2005. These include: an ETL tool (SQL Server Integration Services or SSIS), a Reporting Server, an OLAP and data mining server (Analysis Services), and several messaging technologies, specifically Service Broker and Notification Services.

SQL Server 2005

SQL Server 2005 (codenamed Yukon), released in October 2005, is the successor to SQL Server 2000. It included native support for managing XML data, in addition to relational data. For this purpose, it defined an xml data type that could be used either as a data type in database columns or as literals in queries. XML columns can be associated with XSD schemas; XML data being stored is verified against the schema. XML is converted to an internal binary data type before being stored in the database. Specialized indexing methods were made available for XML data. XML data is queried using XQuery; Common Language Runtime (CLR) integration was a main features with this edition, enabling one to write SQL code as Managed Code by the CLR. SQL Server 2005 added some extensions to the T-SQL language to allow embedding XQuery queries in T-SQL. In addition, it also defines a new extension to XQuery, called XML DML, that allows query-based modifications to XML data. SQL Server 2005 also allows a database server to be exposed over web services using TDS packets encapsulated within SOAP (protocol) requests. When the data is accessed over web services, results are returned as XML.

For relational data, T-SQL has been augmented with error handling features (try/catch) and support for recursive queries with CTEs (Common Table Expressions). SQL Server 2005 has also been enhanced with new indexing algorithms, syntax and better error recovery systems. Data pages are checksummed for better error resiliency, and optimistic concurrency support has been added for better performance. Permissions and access control have been made more granular and the query processor handles concurrent execution of queries in a more efficient way. Partitions on tables and indexes are supported natively, so scaling out a database onto a cluster is easier. SQL CLR was introduced with SQL Server 2005 to let it integrate with the .NET Framework.

SQL Server 2005 introduced "MARS" (Multiple Active Results Sets), a method of allowing usage of database connections for multiple purposes.

SQL Server 2005 introduced DMVs (Dynamic Management Views), which are specialized views and functions that return server state information that can be used to monitor the health of a server instance, diagnose problems, and tune performance.

SQL Server 2005 introduced Database Mirroring, but it was not fully supported until the first Service Pack release (SP1). In the initial release (RTM) of SQL Server 2005, database mirroring was available, but unsupported. In order to implement database mirroring in the RTM version, you had to apply trace flag 1400 at startup. Database mirroring is a high availability option that provides redundancy and failover capabilities at the database level. Failover can be performed manually or can be configured for automatic failover. Automatic failover requires a witness partner and an operating mode of synchronous (also known as high-safety or full safety).

SQL Server 2008

The latest version of SQL Server, SQL Server 2008, was released (RTM) on August 6, 2008 and aims to make data management self-tuning, self organizing, and self maintaining with the development of SQL Server Always On technologies, to provide near-zero downtime. SQL Server 2008 also includes support for structured and semi-structured data, including digital media formats for pictures, audio, video and other multimedia data. In current versions, such multimedia data can be stored as BLOBs (binary large objects), but they are generic bitstreams. Intrinsic awareness of multimedia data will allow specialized functions to be performed on them. According to Paul Flessner, senior Vice President, Server Applications, Microsoft Corp., SQL Server 2008 can be a data storage backend for different varieties of data: XML, email, time/calendar, file, document, spatial, etc as well as perform search, query, analysis, sharing, and synchronization across all data types.

Other new data types include specialized date and time types and a Spatial data type for location-dependent data. Better support for unstructured and semi-structured data is provided using the new FILESTREAM data type, which can be used to reference any file stored on the file system. Structured data and metadata about the file is stored in SQL Server database, whereas the unstructured component is stored in the file system. Such files can be accessed both via Win32 file handling APIs as well as via SQL Server using T-SQL; doing the latter accesses the file data as a BLOB. Backing up and restoring the database backs up or restores the referenced files as well. SQL Server 2008 also natively supports hierarchical data, and includes T-SQL constructs to directly deal with them, without using recursive queries.

The Full-Text Search functionality has been integrated with the database engine. According to a Microsoft technical article, this simplifies management and improves performance.

Spatial data will be stored in two types. A "Flat Earth" (GEOMETRY or planar) data type represents geospatial data which has been projected from its native, spherical, coordinate system into a plane. A "Round Earth" data type (GEOGRAPHY) uses an ellipsoidal model in which the Earth is defined as a single continuous entity which does not suffer from the singularities such as the international dateline, poles, or map projection zone "edges". Approximately 70 methods are available to represent spatial operations for the Open Geospatial Consortium Simple Features for SQL, Version 1.1.

SQL Server includes better compression features, which also helps in improving scalability. It enhanced the indexing algorithms and introduced the notion of filtered indexes. It also includes Resource Governor that allows reserving resources for certain users or workflows. It also includes capabilities for transparent encryption of data (TDE) as well as compression of backups. SQL Server 2008 supports the ADO.NET Entity Framework and the reporting tools, replication, and data definition will be built around the Entity Data Model. SQL Server Reporting Services will gain charting capabilities from the integration of the data visualization products from Dundas Data Visualization, Inc., which was acquired by Microsoft. On the management side, SQL Server 2008 includes the Declarative Management Framework which allows configuring policies and constraints, on the entire database or certain tables, declaratively. The version of SQL Server Management Studio included with SQL Server 2008 supports IntelliSense for SQL queries against a SQL Server 2008 Database Engine. SQL Server 2008 also makes the databases available via Windows PowerShell providers and management functionality available as Cmdlets, so that the server and all the running instances can be managed from Windows PowerShell.

SQL Server 2008 R2

SQL Server 2008 R2 (formerly codenamed SQL Server "Kilimanjaro") was announced at TechEd 2009, and was released to manufacturing on April 21, 2010. SQL Server 2008 R2 adds certain features to SQL Server 2008 including a master data management system branded as Master Data Services, a central management of master data entities and hierarchies. Also Multi Server Management, a centralized console to manage multiple SQL Server 2008 instances and services including relational databases, Reporting Services, Analysis Services & Integration Services.

SQL Server 2008 R2 includes a number of new services, including PowerPivot for Excel and SharePoint, Master Data Services, StreamInsight, ReportBuilder 3.0, Reporting Services Add-in for SharePoint, a Data-tier function in Visual Studio that enables packaging of tiered databases as part of an application, and a SQL Server Utility named UC (Utility Control Point), part of AMSM (Application and Multi-Server Management) that is used to manage multiple SQL Servers.