I have found these 17 hours of video tutorials from the SQL Server School to be excellent. Brian Knight and his cohorts give very a concise explanation of many fundamental Sql Server concepts. Very practical information.
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May I Also Recommend for Further Study? Bob Tabor also has an excellent 20-part series on LINQ that is entitled: LINQ to SQL 101. Check it out in the video library section of LearnVisualStudio. It is one of the best sites for learning Visual Studio that I have found, and they allow you to download many videos for free to try it out. I have a Lifetime Subscription to Learn Visual Studio and have spent hundreds of hours watching their videos. I am very satisfied with the amount of information that they provide, and I think it is an extremely good value. Most video tutorials and live training classes for Visual Studio cost around $25 per hour (see AppDev.com, Learnkey.com, etc.), but Learn Visual Studio only costs about 70 cents per hour of video. You can save 30% off of the retail price for Learn Visual Studio by clicking on the link at the beginning of this paragraph.
Get a basic understanding of how to use SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services in this 6-part webcast series presented by Microsoft Champion, Susan Wisowaty.
Need a Quick Way to See These .NET Videos and Monitor Your Progress?
May I Also Recommend for Further Study? Bob Tabor also has several excellent videos on using Reporting Services in the video series entitled "Getting Started with SQL Server 2005 Express Edition". You will find the series in the video section at LearnVisualStudio.
This first webcast in our series on Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services provides a high-level overview of its capabilities, and helps identify opportunities for incorporating Reporting Services into your business environment. We begin by briefly discussing the history of Reporting Services and the architecture upon which it is built. We cover subscriptions, the various solution types available, and options for embedding reports in applications. Learn about licensing, requirements, installation, and the features and reporting lifecycle of the Reporting Services platform. The session concludes with a look at some simple report examples, and establishes the basis for further exploration throughout the rest of the series.
This second webcast in our series on Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services covers the fundamentals of report design, and shows how to use simple design tools. We explore the Report Wizard and the building blocks of report design, report items and layout. The discussion covers grouping, lists, matrix reports, and defining drill-through reports. We also explain how to write custom code to extend formatting and apply business logic. The session concludes with a look at how to define queries, datasets, and parameters to filter data.
The third webcast in this series on Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services explores the platform for defining ad hoc reports. Effective report models are key to enabling end users to create meaningful reports. We begin with an examination of the Report Builder Model Designer tool and discuss strategies for building successful models. From there, we show you how to easily format, sort, and filter data, and perform calculations. We conclude with a look at some of the different ways you can manage Report Builder models and reports.
This fourth webcast in this series on Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services explores the different options for delivering and deploying reports to end users. Learn about the different methods of report delivery, and the multiple formats available. We look at the mechanisms for pull delivery, including Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0 integration, the Reporting Services Web service, and URL access. We then show how to create a subscription for a push delivery, and conclude with a look at using Windows Forms controls to deliver reports locally to users.
This fifth webcast in our series on Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services addresses the issues surrounding effective Reporting Services administration. The discussion covers topics such as configuration, management, and security, and describes how to automate common administrative tasks.
This concluding webcast in our series on Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services addresses two areas: integrating Reporting Services into custom applications, and extending Reporting Services. Learn how to add code to a report, use the Reporting Services Web service as a data source, and create a custom data source. We show how Reporting Services is a flexible reporting tool that can easily be incorporated into different applications. We also examine Reporting Services as a robust and scalable product by looking at extensibility options and how to create custom extensions.
Overview: Join this series as we look at Microsoft SQL Server 2008 as a productive data platform. Throughout this series, we use Contoso (Container Overseas Shipping Operation) LTD as our scenario customer while we explore the features that make SQL Server 2008 this platform. Contoso is a shipping company; they arrange the shipping of all kinds of items around the globe, from small individual items to large manufactured items. Contoso has seen growth in its business over the past years, especially in the movement of goods from China around the world. While Contoso is happy with their in-house applications and believe they provide significant business advantage over competitors, Contoso wants to ensure that these applications are running on the best productive platform to maintain this advantage, especially as their business grows worldwide.
Presenter: Ron Cundiff, MSDN Developer Evangelist, Microsoft Corporation
Ron Cundiff has worked in the IT industry for more than 10 years, most recently as a developer evangelist for Microsoft. He is an MSDN developer evangelist whose certifications include MCSD, MCSE, MCDBA, MCP+I, and MCP+SB. Before he joined Microsoft in 2002, Ron worked for an independent software vendor (ISV).
Presenter: Bryan Von Axelson, Partner Solutions Advisor, Microsoft Corporation
Maybe he lived in Kansas for too long, but Bryan Von Axelson (who now resides in Pennsylvania) compares IT professionals to the Wizard of Oz, working behind the curtain to keep everything running smoothly. In addition to his Microsoft credentials and certifications, Bryan has been a national speaker for the tax software industry and participated in several business and computer radio shows. In 2007, he presented a one-hour Microsoft SQL Server webcast that reached more than 800 people a week for 10 consecutive weeks. Bryan brings infectious enthusiasm, excitement, and most importantly, hands-on knowledge to his TechNet presentations.
Presenter: John Pelak, ISV Architect Evangelist, Microsoft Corporation
John Pelak is an Independent Software Vendor (ISV) architect evangelist with the Microsoft United States ISV Team, and is responsible for growing partner satisfaction and accelerating Microsoft platform adoption within the ISV partner community. John has held various technical roles since joining Microsoft in 1995. He has an extensive background in development and server technologies, and has architected and developed many large-scale, high-performance solutions for Microsoft customers and partners.Prior to Microsoft, John worked for AT&T and as an independent software developer for telecommunication and pharmaceutical companies. He holds degrees in electrical engineering and computer science, and is pursuing independent study in biotechnology.
Presenter: Chris Avis, IT Pro Evangelist, Microsoft Corporation
Chris Avis began his career at Microsoft in 1994 working on Microsoft Windows NT networking and later moving to the Microsoft BackOffice Server and Windows Small Business Server support team. Chris is an enthusiastic TechNet presenter who enjoys it when audience members realize, "I did not know I could do that!" If you are lucky enough to see Chris in action, prepare to be entertained. As a Microsoft Certified Trainer, Chris shares his broad knowledge of the installation, networking configuration, and management of Microsoft products while doing his best to make your introduction to new technologies fast-paced and engaging.
Presenter: Mike Benkovich, Developer Evangelist, Microsoft Corporation
Mike Benkovich is a database technology specialist and an MSDN developer evangelist based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Focusing on the effective use of relational technologies for scalable, high-performance, and mission-critical applications, Mike has worked as an architect, project manager, developer, and technical writer. He speaks regularly at technical conferences and corporations.
Presenter: John Weston, IT Pro Evangelist, Microsoft Corporation
Some may call John Weston a geek, but he prefers the term "technologist." Before joining Microsoft, John spent six years as a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT), helping people learn new technologies at a local college and bringing newly hired Microsoft employees up to speed. Though he is an MCSE, MCDBA, MCT, and Cisco Certified Network Associate, John gets the most enjoyment from teaching customers how to take advantage of the powerful capabilities of Microsoft SQL Server. When he is not working, John can usually be found sailing around Texas with his kids.
Presenter: Donald Farmer, Principal Program Manager, Microsoft Corporation and Lynn Langit, Developer Evangelist, Microsoft Corporation
Donald Farmer has worked in the Microsoft Business Intelligence team since 2001. He has worked on both the Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services and Integration Services product teams. Donald is now a principal program manager for SQL Server Analysis Services, working to build a seamless integration of predictive and exploratory analytics with the Microsoft business intelligence offering. Donald is a popular speaker at international events for both business and technical audiences on a wide range of topics, such as data integration, information quality, metadata intelligence, master data management, and predictive analytics. He is the author of a number of articles and books, including The Rational Guide to Extending SSIS 2005 (Rational Press, 2007). Prior to joining Microsoft, Donald worked not only in business intelligence, but also in fields as varied as medieval archaeology and fish farming.
Need a Quick Way to See These .NET Videos and Monitor Your Progress?
May I Also Recommend for Further Study? Bob Tabor also has an excellent 20-part series on LINQ that is entitled: LINQ to SQL 101. Check it out in the video library section of LearnVisualStudio.
In this webcast, we look at how Contoso LTD can take advantage of the Microsoft data platform to extend their applications. We concentrate on Microsoft .NET Language-Integrated Query (LINQ) and the ADO.NET Entity Framework with examples of how Contoso can use these technologies to access their data. Join us as we go into detailed coverage of data platform features, LINQ, and ADO.NET Entity Framework.
In this webcast, we look at how Contoso LTD can increase methods of accessing data without the need for complex connections and filters on firewalls. We concentrate on Service Broker and ADO.NET Data Services in this session.
In this session, Contoso developers have identified a number of features that can assist them in improving the applications that Contoso field employees rely on. We explore the new features in SQL Server 2008 that the developers are excited about and we focus on T-SQL improvements, such as MERGE, the Table Valued Parameters feature that lets data rows be passed as parameters to stored procedures, in addition to Date/Time, Intellisense, and multi server T_SQL.
The recent growth at Contoso has been mirrored with the growth of its data, from client voice mails to scanned and e-mail documents. These documents are now common as part of insurance claims or parts of quotes. This growth in unstructured data has led Contoso to look at options for its storage, access, security, and searching needs. Join this session as we look at the FILESTREAM attribute and Remote BLOB Store API features in SQL Server 2008 as potential solutions to this problem. We cover the differences from large unstructured data storage in Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and then explore the new SQL Server 2008 features in detail, while explaining how to implement them.
In the next two webcasts of this series, we look at the management side of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and focus on challenges that database administrators face. See how Contoso's business in the Far East has grown rapidly, and as such, their major operations at ports in Los Angeles, Tacoma, Rotterdam, and Tilbury have grown too. This has resulted in an increase in SQL Server deployments to handle the data required to deliver up-to-date information to sales teams and customers. Contoso is looking to SQL Server 2008 to assist in the management of this environment. We cover topics including managing complex and high-value tasks, proactively monitoring and tuning system health, scaling management to multiple data centers, and gaining insight into historical trends and real-time activities.
In this webcast, we focus on the Policy-Based Management (PBM) and its use to define policies that apply to servers, databases, and other objects in Contoso's data environment. This session is solely focused on PBM and covers the scope, definition, and deployment of policies.
Contoso now wants to implement a mapping feature into its systems. It sees a number of benefits to this, from assisting in pickup and delivery of consignments by providing maps to the local transports teams, in addition to providing data on consignment locations to customers, and re-routing options for agents. Join us to learn how to use spatial data types within SQL Server to create these mapping features using Microsoft Virtual Earth.
In this part of the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 series, we focus on IT professionals and the SQL Server 2008 the Trusted Platform. In the first part of the series we spent time looking at how Contoso was using SQL Server 2008 as a productivity platform. Now we change direction from developers and look at how Contoso's IT operations embraced the new and enhanced features to make sure that SQL Server 2008 was a trusted platform. The first two parts address security, which is a main theme for Contoso as they have large amounts of critical data that needs to be protected against both internal and external threats. Either data loss or compromise would be a nightmare scenario. In this session, we look at features such as surface area configuration policies, external key management, and Network Access Protection (NAP), and Windows BitLocker Drive Encryption, which Contoso could use to protect its data.
While it is extremely important to secure your data, it is also vital to secure your system also. One without the other is not a secure solution. In this webcast, we look at the systems on which Microsoft SQL Server relies and runs. Contoso made two major decisions concerning their data: the first was to use Microsoft SQL Server 2008, the second was to move to Windows Server 2008 at the back end and Windows Vista at the front end. These two operating systems together offered the best solution going forward. In this session, we focus on the Windows Server 2008 part of the combination to look at the features that enabled Contoso to secure their systems that run SQL Server and its required services. Key security features that we cover are: surface area configuration policies, external key management, Network Access Protection (NAP), and Windows BitLocker Drive Encryption.
Contoso expansion over the past years increased the challenges the IT organization faced with regard to the increased number of offices and data growth. As jobs come in and consignments travel around the globe, different external organizations require information 24-7. The Microsoft SQL Server systems have to be available around the clock around the world. In this session, we look at high availability options in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 that help ensure that these systems are there when they are needed–regardless of what component has failed.
At any given time, Contoso's servers provide multiple services to users and applications. Using Microsoft SQL Server 2008, Contoso would like to achieve better performance with its workloads. In this session, we look the Resource Governor, which enables administrators to define limits and assign priorities to individual workloads that are running on a SQL Server instance. We also look at Plan Freezing in SQL Server 2008, which enables greater query performance stability and predictability by providing new functionality to lock down query plans. This enables organizations to promote stable query plans across hardware server replacements, server upgrades, and production deployments.
The foundation of Contoso's business intelligence (BI) strategy is the development of a data warehouse using Microsoft SQL Server 2008. Scalability and performance of the data warehouse are important for the successful deployment of Contoso's enterprise data warehouse. In this webcast, we cover the new features in SQL Server 2008 that support Contoso's goals, such as:
Partition-aligned indexed views.
Star join query optimization.
Data compression.
Partitioned table parallelism.
Grouping sets.
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 includes many new features that Contoso can use to manage the enterprise data warehouse. In this webcast, we cover the following topics:
Minimal logging for inserts.
Online index management.
Backup compression.
Switching in a new partition.
Using the resource governor.
The recent growth at Contoso has been mirrored with the growth of its data, from client voice mails to scanned and e-mail documents. These documents are now common as part of insurance claims or parts of quotes. This growth in unstructured data has led Contoso to look at options for its storage, access, security, and searching needs. Contoso wants to allow both IT developers and power users to create reports using the new Report Designer. In this webcast, we review the new features in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services that support both types of developers, in addition to more flexible and richer types of reports. We cover new report designer layout features, tablix, chart features, and variables.
Unless you have never deployed Microsoft SQL Server, sooner or later you may look at upgrading to a new version. Contoso would like to move their existing SQL Server databases to Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and, at the same time, take advantage of the latest improvements in Business Intelligence (BI). In this session, we look at the methods that Contoso used to upgrade.
An area of concern for Contoso is the monitoring and troubleshooting of any performance issues it may encounter on Microsoft SQL Server 2008. In this session, we cover the tools available for IT departments as they troubleshoot performance. We look at Performance Studio, the features available, and how to use them to analyze performance. We also cover how to use the Best Practice Analyzer for SQL Server, and utilizing the results it provides.
Contoso, like most firms, found that once one database is deployed, others soon follow. Unless planned, these deployments can scale out of control. Microsoft SQL Server 2008 offers a number of features that provide solutions for Contoso to scale out and up, while maintaining control. In this webcast, we show you how to take advantage of the latest hardware, such as 64-bit, hot add memory, and CPU, as well as software features. Learn to speed up query processing with Partitioned Table Parallelism through backup and compression, and to speed up backup times and replication.
This webcast was designed for IT professionals and developers. To support high-performing ad hoc analysis, Contoso wants to develop a Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services database. In this webcast, we review the new features in Analysis Services that may help Contoso accelerate development and achieve optimal performance. Topics covered include:
- Developing a cube and dimensions using the wizards.
- Working with best practices warnings.
- Designing proper attribute relationships.
- Using the aggregation designer.
Contoso wants to implement data mining to help the sales department better understand its customer base and forecast future sales based on historical trends. In this webcast, we review the data mining capabilities of the Microsoft business intelligence (BI) platform, including:
- Using Microsoft SQL Server Data Mining Add-ins for Excel for table analysis.
- Developing a mining structure with multiple mining models.
- Viewing mining model results including drill-through and reviewing accuracy.
- Viewing results of mining models using Data Mining Add-ins for Excel.
Using the Time Series algorithm for forecasting.
To load data into the Contoso enterprise data warehouse, Contoso uses Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Integration Services. In this webcast, we review the new features in Integration Services that help Contoso streamline the development and execution of processes to extract, transform, and load data into the data warehouse: ADO.NET connectivity, persistent lookups, pipeline improvements, and data profiling. We also examine alternatives for managing changing data in the data warehouse using the Change Data Capture function and MERGE command. Demonstrations on using an ADO.NET data source, working with lookup caches, identifying dirty data with data profiling, and using Change Data Capture and MERGE for slowly changing dimensions are included in this webcast.
Contoso plans to provide employees with access to standard reports using Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services. In this webcast, we review the new features in Reporting Services that enable organizations to easily configure and manage a scalable, high-performance reporting infrastructure, including the new physical architecture of Reporting Services, authentication configuration, the new processing and rendering architecture, and memory management. We also provide demonstrations on configuring Reporting Services, using the Configuration Manager, configuring authentication alternatives, and configuring memory settings.
Throughout this series, we use Contoso as our scenario customer as we explore the features that make up the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 platform. Contoso is a shipping company that delivers all kinds of items around the globe, from small individual items to large manufactured items. Contoso has seen growth in its business over the past years, especially in the movement of goods from China around the world. While Contoso is happy with their in-house applications and believe they provide a significant advantage over competitors, Contoso wants to ensure that these applications are running on the most productive platform to maintain this advantage, especially as their business grows worldwide. The recent growth at Contoso has been mirrored with the growth of its data, from client voice mails to scanned and e-mail documents. These documents are now common as part of insurance claims or parts of quotes. This growth in unstructured data has led Contoso to look at options for its storage, access, security, and searching needs.
The business intelligence (BI) platform that Contoso is building can be used in a variety of ways by its employees using technologies built into the 2007 Microsoft Office system. In this webcast, we review the integrated reporting and analytics options available to Contoso, including:
Microsoft Office Excel 2007.
Excel Services.
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.
Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server.
Presenter: Bryan Von Axelson, TechNet Presenter, Microsoft Corporation Bryan Von Axelson joined the SST Team last September as a TechNet Presenter. Before that, Bryan consulted for seven years throughout the Midwest and Western United States, targeting the small and medium business segment. Previously, Bryan worked for Franklin Covey and MCI. Bryan brings 14 years experience as an IT Professional and relates his real-world experiences and best practices into his sessions.
Need a Quick Way to See These .NET Videos and Monitor Your Progress?
May I Also Recommend for Further Study? Bob Tabor also has an excellent 20-part series on LINQ that is entitled: LINQ to SQL 101. Check it out in the video library section of LearnVisualStudio.
Part one of this series explores the changes to the administration and management tools in SQL Server 2005. The discussion focuses primarily on the new Management Studio tool, which encompasses the Enterprise Manager, Query Analyzer and OLAP Analysis Manager from SQL 2000. Because the tool runs within the Visual Studio interface, we will also look at this interface and the functions it can perform. 3/21/2005 | Duration:60 Minutes
In part two of this series, we look at the monitoring tools available with SQL Server 2005. We examine the SQL Profiler, Database Tuning Advisor, Database Maintenance Workflow and Dynamic Management Views (DMVs). 3/28/2005 | Duration:60 Minutes
SQL Server 2005 provides enhancements to enable greater concurrency and significantly reduce lock contention. In part three of this series, we show you how to use Snapshot Isolation to reduce currency contention. Gain an understanding of database snapshots and replication for scaling and read-only views, and learn how Dynamic Management Views can help you proactively monitor locking and avoid deadlocks. 4/4/2005 | Duration:60 Minutes
Parts four and five in our series highlight the security enhancements in SQL Server 2005. Part four of this series focuses on authentication and authorization while crypto support is covered in part five. We begin with authentication, examining the Security model, endpoint-based authentication and the password policy. Then we move on to explore authorization, covering User Schema separation, module execution context, granular permission control and Catalog security. 4/11/2005 | Duration:60 Minutes
Parts four and five in our series highlight the security enhancements in SQL Server 2005. Building upon the discussion of authentication and authorization in the previous session, part five of the series covers the crypto support in SQL Server 2005. We begin with an introduction to the concepts of database encryption including encryption support, keys, certificates and key management. We show how SQL 2005 can protect sensitive data using data encryption and module signatures, and introduce sign modules, what these are and how they work. 4/18/2005 | Duration:60 Minutes
Partitioned tables improve the scalability and manageability of very large SQL Server databases. In part six of this series we look at the table and index partitioning capabilities in SQL Server 2005. The discussion will outline the features and benefits of partitioning, explain how it works, and illustrate how to implement and set up this feature. 4/25/2005 | Duration:60 Minutes
The aim of creating indexes and partitioning data in a database is to yield good performance for users. Part seven in this series looks at the enhancements to the indexing within SQL Server 2005. We begin by outlining the basic changes to the indexing compared to previous versions. We then drill into index management and show how to use the Database Tuning Advisor as the main tool to analyze indexes. 5/2/2005 | Duration:60 Minutes
Part eight in the series covers troubleshooting methods and tools in Microsoft SQL Server 2005 that you can use to recover from various scenarios. Topics include database access problems, such as the database being marked as suspect during recovery; backup and restore failures; database runtime consistency failures, such as checksum; and DBCC CHECKDB errors. Learn how to take advantage of new features in SQL Server 2005 to recover your data in order to make yourself more productive in disaster recovery situations. 5/9/2005 | Duration:60 Minutes
Database mirroring is a new technology in SQL Server 2005 that provides very fast, automatic failover to a standby system. In part nine of this series we examine this new enhancement in detail, and will show you how to configure and use it. 5/16/2005 | Duration:60 Minutes
SQL Server includes a suite of replication technologies that enable a wide range of distributed database applications. SQL Server 2005 introduces a few new scenarios including Web synchronization of merge replication for mobile and distributed data applications, Oracle publishing for integration with Oracle databases, and peer-to-peer replication. In this final webcast in our ten-part series, learn how you can benefit from these scenarios with an enhanced ability to monitor the entire distributed system. 5/18/2005 | Duration:60 Minutes
Excellent SQL Server 2005 Express series of 13 free videos from Bob Tabor at LearnVisualStudio.Net.
The best hosting company that I have found for .NET applications is Discountasp.net. Discountasp.net provides many SQL tools that make it easy to remotely manage your sql database directly from your computer that other hosting companies like GoDaddy do not.
Need a Quick Way to See These .NET Videos and Monitor Your Progress?
May I Also Recommend for Further Study? Bob Tabor also has an excellent 20-part series on LINQ that is entitled: LINQ to SQL 101. Check it out in the video library section of LearnVisualStudio. It is one of the best sites for learning Visual Studio that I have found, and they allow you to download many videos for free to try it out. I have a Lifetime Subscription to Learn Visual Studio and have spent hundreds of hours watching their videos. I am very satisfied with the amount of information that they provide, and I think it is an extremely good value. Most video tutorials and live training classes for Visual Studio cost around $25 per hour (see AppDev.com, Learnkey.com, etc.), but Learn Visual Studio only costs about 70 cents per hour of video. You can save 30% off of the retail price for Learn Visual Studio by clicking on the link at the beginning of this paragraph.
A. SQL Server terminology for creating and managing databases; B. SQL Server database; C. Compare SQL Server to Excel; D. Relation between SQL Server Database and Desktop application or website; E. Relationship between SQL Server Express and Visual Studio Express; ADO.NET
A. Differentiate between SQL Server database files and SQL Server processes. B. Various scenarios for connecting to SQL Server Express databases C. Enabling and disabling user instances D. login permissions E. other security precautions
SQL Server Management Studio Express B. Connect to database instances C. Navigate the query window D. Scripting database objects E. Attaching, detaching and backing up databases
Set up Reporting Services and the Business Intelligence Development Studio B. Build reports using the wizards and designers C. Deploy reports to Report Server.
Building reports from scratch B. Modifying the reports that were created using the wizards and designers C. Embedding reports into ASP.NET Web Form applications
Stored Procedures B. Basic syntax to create and update stored procedures C. Using input and output parameters, return values, declaring variables and adding other T-SQL programming elements into you stored procedures D. Executing stored procedures from the query window E. Visual Basic and C# syntax required to utilize stored procedures in applications
Setting up Full-Text search within SQL Server Express. B. Creating full-text indexes C. Configuring the index population settings D. CONTAINS predicate
This programming video tutorial series will show will show you how to install SQL Server 2005 Express and SQL Server Management Studio. SQL Server provides you with a "window" to connect to your databases. You use the "SQL (Structured Query Language) Language" to reach through the window to "touch" and "manipulate" the databases.
The express version of SQL Server is totally free. It allows you create and update tables on your own computer or update tables on a remote web server. The standard Edition (not the Express) allows you to directly create and administer your tables on a remote web server, but the Express version only allows updating on remote web servers.
In this first video, we will look at how to install SQL ServerExpress Edition 2005. Please click on the heading for the tutorial if you want to view it in full-screen mode.
Need a Quick Way to See .NET Videos and Monitor Your Progress?
If you want to learn more about SQL Server and dotNET technologies, I recommend the video series from Learn Visual Studio. It is a fantastic resource for learning about using Microsoft's products and you can try out a number of videos for free - no strings attached. I have spent many hours viewing their videos as I have a Lifetime Subscription to Learn Visual Studio.
By far, the best hosting company that I have found for .NET applications is Discountasp.net. Discountasp.net provides many SQL tools that make it easy to remotely manage your sql database directly from your computer that other hosting companies like GoDaddy do not.
Quick 10-minute tutorial shows how to install SQL Server Express 2005.
Other Tutorials in This Series
This is a work in progress - More to episodes will be coming…Please bookmark this post and check back often.
Further Study
Microsoft has an excellent series of 13 video tutorials on SQL Server 2005 Express that lasts about 9 hours. The series is for beginners, but everyone can learn a good deal from it. You can view the series by clicking on this link: SQL Server 2005 Express Video Tutorials
What is SQL? SQL stands for Structured Query Language and is the lingua franca in the database world. SQL is a standard that is used by all database vendors and programmers to define, extract and access the information that is stored in databases.
SQL began life as an IBM creation but was standardized by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) as ANSI/ISO SQL in 1988. Since then ANSI/ISO SQL standard continued to evolve. The ANSI-SQL group has since published three standards over the years:
1. SQL89 (SQL1)
2. SQL92 (SQL2)
3. SQL99 (SQL3)
SQL is a query language. It is English-like and easy to use. However, although there are more than 90 SQL reserved words, most programmers seldom use more than the following handful of commands - SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, FROM, WHERE, HAVING, BETWEEN, LIKE, OR, AND, NOT, IN, ORDER, GROUP and BY.
For example, if you had a database table named "employees" and you wanted to retrieve all records where the employee has the last name "goodman", you would use the following SQL statement:
SELECT * FROM employees WHERE lastname = 'goodman';
There are many different categories of SQL statements but the basic ones which all programmers should be familiar with are the SQL statements that:
1. Create tables and manipulate their definitions
2. Query the table data
3. Manipulate the table data
SQL is predominantly used by 2 types of users - programs and humans (keying in the commands through a database client) - to pass instructions to databases. SQL commands can be keyed into a database client like the MySQL Query Browser or the SQL
Server Enterprise Manager and executed to either return a result or modify records in the database. SQL can also be used in conjunction with programming language or scripting language like Microsoft Visual Basic or PHP to communicate with the database.
Although SQL is a world standard, it is unfortunate that most database vendors have come up with different dialects and variations. This is because every database vendor wants to differentiate their database products from the crowd. One good example is Microsoft SQL Server's TRANSACT-SQL. TRANSACT-SQL is a superset of SQL and is designed for use only with Microsoft SQL Server. Although it does make programming much easier for software developers, it is not compliant with other databases like Oracle or MySQL - making TRANSACT-SQL programs non database-portable. As such, although many of these features are powerful and robust, it is good practice to exercise caution and limit your SQL use to be compliant with the ANSI/ISO SQL standards and ODBC-Compliant.
Courtesty of SQLPrimer.com. For more information, please contact the Webmaster of
SQLPrimer.com - http://www.sqlprimer.com.
About the Author
John L is the Webmaster of SQLPrimer.com - http://www.sqlprimer.com.
Excellent SQL Server 2005 Express series of 13 free videos from Bob Tabor at 
