Downloads from this Issue

• Understanding CLR Integration in SQL Server 2005 by Christofer Hedgate (download now)
• Performance of PIVOT Operator and CASE/GROUP BY Method by Peter He(download now)

Table of Contents

Editorial: A New Paradigm by Steve Jones

Understanding CLR Integration in SQL Server 2005 by Christoffer Hedgate A great introduction to CLR Integration in SQL Server 2005 that discusses the architecture and capabilities of this new feature.
	Why CLR Stored Procedures Will Become a Tool You'll Learn to Love by Tom Fuller Tom Fuller extols some of the great new ways that CLR Integration will excite you as you integrate it into your applications.
Performance of PIVOT Operator and CASE/GROUP BY Method by Peter He One of the new T-SQL enhancements is the PIVOT operator, which can allow you to work with complex GROUP BY queries. Peter He examines how this operator performs in comparison with SQL Server 2000 techniques.
	NULLs and Related Oddities by Lee Everest Many people new to SQL Server see NULL as a blank value or a 0, which is not only incorrect, but can cause problems when summarizing data that contains NULLs. This article looks at some of the strange behaviors of queries that work with NULL values.
Common Table Expressions and Recursion by K. Brian Kelley Common Table Expressions and Recursion bring a powerful new tool for working with hierarchial data.
	Use SQL Server 2005’s OUTPUT Clause to Audit DML Operations by Joseph Sack The new OUTPUT clause in SQL Server 2005 can greatly ease the development of an auditing solution in your application. This article looks at a practical way for using this clause.
MAXimum functionality with SQL 2005 Large-Value Data Types and Large Row Support by Kathi Kellenberger Data volumes are constantly growing and an understanding of the new large data types in SQL Server is key to taking advantage of the enhancements in this area. This article looks at the large row and data type support in SQL Server 2005.
Using XML For Analysis With SQL 2005 Analysis Services by Chris Harrington

SQL Server 2005 is supposed to deliver a new paradigm for developing applications based on SQL Server. Much of the hope is that integration of the Common Runtime Language (CLR) and the .NET framework along with T-SQL enhancements will dramatically alter the way you develop your next generation of applications.

I am not completely sold that this is a good thing, but I certainly believe that it will change the way applications are developed and DBAs will need to cope with a much wider variety of stored procedures and queries in the next few years. DBAs will need to become more skilled in various programming languages to understand the potential impacts on the database server. This is in addition to the changes that SQL Server brings to T-SQL .

This month we take a look at some of the ways that SQL Server 2005 changes for the DBA. We have a variety of articles on some changes in T-SQL like the addition of the OUTPUT clause, a great way to simplify the auditing capabilities of many applications. There also is the new MAX keyword for large data types. We also take a look at the performance of the new PIVOT function against the traditional CASE and GROUP BY structure. Lastly we have a look at Common Table Expressions (CTEs) by Brian Kelley, our security expert branching out into SQL Server 2005 programming.

We also have a great look at the CLR integration from Chris Hedgate, SQL Server guru from Sweden who has been working with SQL Server 2005 for quite awhile. This is a great introduction to how the CLR works in SQL Server 2005 and the implications and potential issues you will run into with developers looking to add .NET functions to their database queries. Tom Fuller also brings us a pro-CLR article that extols some of the virtues of CLR integration and why you will look forward to working with it.

While there are a number of changes to SQL Server 2005, there are still many features and capabilities that will seem familiar to SQL Server 2000 DBAs. So don’t let all of the changes scare you away from taking a look at this new version. Download the evaluation or install the developer edition and start experimenting.

Steve Jones