Introduction

Whether your organization is migrating from an existing SQL Server installation, migrating from a different relational database system, or starting from scratch with its first database server, SQL Server 2000 is ready to help you get started. Strong support for previous versions of SQL Server make the upgrade process as straightforward as many traditional software upgrades. For migrations from SQL Server 6.5, the SQL Server Upgrade Wizard will provide a clean switch to SQL Server 2000. The Database Copy Wizard and Data Transformation Services can assist you in transferring database solutions from other database servers to your new SQL Server at any point after your initial SQL Server installation has been completed.

SQL Server 2000 offers new features that will benefit the increasingly popular role of application service providers (ASPs) and large-scale deployment tasks. Aside from the ability to generate answer files for performing multiple automated installations, SQL Server 2000 now supports disk imaging. SQL Server installations can be disk imaged and distributed to multiple servers. This feature allows organizations to deploy identical SQL Server configurations on demand.

Another popular installation option in SQL Server 2000 is its support for multiple instances. With each instance operating comparable to an independent server, multiple instance support will allow organizations such as application service providers and Web-hosting providers to offer dedicated SQL Servers without managing independent physical servers. Tasks such as client access, administration, and security concerns are minimized when compared with single database servers hosting multiple applications.

The following sections walk...