C

Cascade delete/Cascading delete

A delete operation of a row in a parent table that automatically deletes all related rows in the child table(s).

Cascade update/Cascading update

An update operation to a primary key value in the parent table that automatically updates all related foreign key values in the child table(s).

Certificate

An asymmetric key, usually issued by a certificate authority, that contains the public key of a public/private key pair as well as identifying information, expiration dates, and other information and that provides the ability to authenticate its holder. Certificates are used in SQL Server 2005 to secure logins or other database objects.

Check constraint

A constraint that enforces domain integrity. A check constraint specifies an expression defining the permitted values for data in a column.

Checkpoint

An event in which the database engine writes pages that have been modified, but the modifications have not yet been written to disk. Checkpoints can occur periodically based on the number of log records generated by data modifications or when requested by a user or a system shutdown.

A point that you can return to directly if the package should fail past that point. Complex packages will often have multiple checkpoints to reduce the amount of work that will need to be redone if a failure occurs.

CHECKSUM

A redundancy check used to protect data integrity in SQL Server 2005. It is created from an algorithm based on the data itself as it is written to disk and then compared when read from disk.

Cipher text

The encrypted version of plain text. A key is required to transform the cipher text back into plain, human-readable text.

CLR user-defined data type

A user-defined type that is built upon managed code and not merely a system-defined type.

Clustered index

A SQL Server index where the sorted order is the physical order. A table can have only a single clustered index.

Computed column

A virtual column defined at the table level through a Transact-SQL expression.

Concurrency

A process that allows multiple users to access and change shared data at the same time.

Configuration Manager

The utility provided with SQL Server 2005 to work with the service account configuration and start-up mode and the network communication setup.

Conflict resolution policy

A policy used to define the winner in a conflict when data is allowed to be updated at both the subscriber and publisher locations.

Connection managers

A way to abstract the definition of a connection to some data source. One immediate benefit of using them is that they can be changed at runtime without altering the package.

Constraint

A SQL Server object used to enforce data integrity at the column level.

Contract

A component of a Service Broker that defines what message types can be sent in a dialog and which dialog endpoint is used.

Control flow

A component of a SQL Server Integration Services package that controls the flow of tasks within the package.

The high-level workflow of a package. Often contains one or more data flow tasks.

Conversation

A SQL Server Service Broker component that exchanges messages in a reliable, ordered manner.

Conversation group

A SQL Server Service Broker component that facilitates the grouping of conversations.

CRUD

Create, Read, Update, and Delete. Refers to the major functions that need to be implemented in a database solution.