Introduction

Every organization creates data and has the need for a secure and reliable location to store that information. Although that statement is not news to anyone reading this book, for many small and medium-sized organizations, a secure and reliable location has been the key to the information technology puzzle. When Microsoft began development on the next release of SQL Server following version 6.5, one of its goals was to simplify administration. SQL Server 7.0 made tremendous headway in allowing smaller organizations to solve their data storage problems with SQL Server. Without dedicated database administrators, administering many relational database systems is out of the question. This problem was solved by providing features such as administration wizards to create objects and perform tasks such as adding users, backing up databases, and transferring data. SQL Server s autotuning and file autogrow features cut down on the amount of administration required to keep your database solution up and running. All of these features are complemented by the advanced techniques available to large organizations that have dedicated SQL Server experts. The result of this effort is a database system that can run a four-person small business all the way up to multinational organization with dozens of database administrators.

If your organization is like many, starting up your database server and verifying backups is not the end of your day. In addition to its dozens of enhancements and new features, SQL Server 2000 has extended its administration assistance with additional wizards, enhanced autotuning and integration with...