When Microsoft introduced SQL Server 2005, it was the first major update in almost five years to its SQL Server line. It became their next generation data management and analysis solution. For the developer, it also came with a huge amount of changes that increased security, scalability, and power.

The goal of Programming SQL Server 2005 is to provide you the resource that you need to learn the ins and outs of programming SQL Server 2005. Its premise is that you do not need to know programming in SQL 2000 — which is so radically different than the new version — in fact, just a basic understanding of SQL is required.

Programming SQL Server 2005 is contained in 21 chapters and an appendix. In order to save some time and space, I will be combining some of the chapters that contain similar topics and provide an overview. The code provided is C# and is compiled using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005.

Chapters 1, 2, and 3, provide an introduction to the book and what the chapters contain. It provides an introduction to both the new, as well as enhanced tools that come with SQL Server 2005. It also covers the topic of what the T-SQL enhancements are. This includes the data types, changes to the T-SQL programming language, new DDL triggers and catalog views.

Chapters 4,5 and 6 covers the CLR, Common Language Runtime, by introducing you to how SQL Server now hosts the .NET Framework CLR in the database engine, and what that means to you. It also provides you with the information needed to program the different types of CLR routines as well as introducing you to the client side of .NET programming.

Chapters 7 and 8, explain both XML Data and how SQL Server 2005 handles native support for XML data storage and processing, and how it also supports native XML web services so that you can send SOAP messages directly to SQL Server 2005. You will also learn how to create and manage HTTP endpoints as well as handling performance.

Chapters 9, 10, 11 and 12 introduce Server Management Objects (SMO), which are a collection of namespaces used for programmatically managing all aspects of SQL Server 2005. You will learn about SMO instance classes to access data such as triggers, tables and indexes, and utility classes to perform tasks that are independent of a SQL instance.

Chapter 13 describes the classes that you use to access Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) and shows you how to program these classes. WMI can be used to manage SQL services, network, and alias settings