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Admin Benefits of SQL Server 2005
Any database or system administrator will be glad to finally move on from SQL Server 2000.
by Danielle Ruest and Nelson Ruest
Tech•Ed, June 8, 2005
It's been a long ride and it's not over yet. Microsoft has been working on the next release of its flagship database for more than five years now. A first beta of the new version was released as far back as the summer of 2003. One year later, the beta was extended to a larger community of testers. In late October last year, Microsoft revised its release schedule for SQL Server 2005 ("Yukon") and stated that the product would not ship until the second half of 2005. Finally, a launch date was announced on Tuesday: the week of November 7.
Any database or system administrator will be glad to finally move on from SQL Server 2000. That's because SQL Server 2000 was really not designed for Windows 2000 Server or Windows Server 2003. SQL uses 8.3 file notation when addressing folders and does not work well with universal naming convention (UNC) paths. This can cause untold issues when installing the product.
In addition, SQL Server 2000 is not even designed to work on Windows Server 2003, giving you a warning when you first install it that it cannot run on the system. Of course, once you apply the right service pack (version 3a or 4), then it works fine, but how many system administrators have installed SQL Server 2000 on a Windows Server 2003 server cluster and had 100 percent success? If you did, you're one of the lucky ones.
These issues will disappear once you move up to SQL Server 2005. First of all, SQL Server 2005 is designed to work with Windows Server 2003, even version R2 which is just a few months away. Second, it no longer relies on the Enterprise Manager for administration. You'll be able to perform administration tasks with one of two tools: SQL Server Workbench, which is the mainstream tool for SQL Server 2005 management, and SQL Server 2005 Express.
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