The Distributed Network Application

Computing today is a networked and distributed phenomenon. Enterprise networks (intranets) and the Internet support millions of clients. Client/server is the dominant model employed, and thin-client/server computing is now the norm. While it seems we have come full circle, clients no longer need to be more than the weight of their user interface. With native HTTP support in SQL Server 2005, 100 percent of the data access functionality and data processing can reside at the server.

Our networked and highly distributed world demands that software product be built according to interoperable client/server component systems. In this regard, the relational database products of yesteryear, which dump a huge footprint of code and functionality on a user’s desktop computer, are out of touch with reality, essentially obsolete. Later, you’ll learn how to move your data from these bloated legacy applications to the SQL Server environment, using business object models, HTTP and SOAP endpoints (Web services and remote objects), and more.

SQL Server 2005 is also one of the core products of the Microsoft .NET Framework, a “phenomenon” once thought to be a passing “fad” that has now matured and is threatening to be the dominant programming model on the Internet.

The .NET Framework experts forecast business-to-business trade over the Internet to exceed $4 trillion by 2010. The Internet has changed the way business is transacted between individuals and enterprises. Continents and oceans no longer separate the silk or spice routes of the world. Distances between partners, buyers, and sellers are measured in hops between routers on the Internet and not by physical distance any more. Whether you call it e-business or e-commerce, the Internet brings the following key benefits:

• Faster time-to-market

• Increased revenues, decreased expenses, greater profit

• Customer satisfaction and loyalty

• Greater agility in delivery of custom-configured products and value-added services

• Competitive advantage

We are already past critical mass levels on the Internet with respect to e-commerce. Practically everything is already online. The .NET Framework was billed by Microsoft as its “comprehensive, integrated platform for building and deploying applications for the Business Internet….” For all intents and purposes SQL Server 2005 is the epitome of the integrated platf orm imagined in the latter part of the last century

Another important buzz-phrase to remember is digital nervous system or Dns (in lowercase so as not to confuse it with Domain Name System). A Dns is what you have when the convergence of technology brings businesses together, allows businesses to instantly respond to dramatic changes in supply and demand, and allows businesses to reach customers quicker and to connect people to information. The Dns has many components, and the RDBMS supplies the storage facility, access to its data, and the interpretation and analysis of that data in the Dns. Taking SQL Server 2005 out of the Dns, or .NET, would be akin to taking the brain out of the human body (and possibly the soul too, if you believe that knowledge survives death).

SQL Server 2005 and the .NET Framework parts now fully cater to the following:

• Internet standards   The SQL Server 2005 .NET Framework technologies support the pervasive standards for data and program message interchange, information exchange, data presentation, and data transportation, such as TCP, SOAP, HTML, and XML.

• Software scale out and scale up SQL   Server can start out in your back pocket and scale out to incredibly powerful multiprocessor megaserver systems. Many of the world’s largest databases run on the 64-bit version of SQL Server 2005.

• Reliability   Downtime is minimized when systems can be scaled out or distributed. The service level is practically guaranteed because an increasing number of single points of failure are eliminated. Physical memory in a system is no longer an issue.

• Interoperability   The more you integrate heterogeneous systems from a collection of reliable vendors, the greater will be your ease of integrating these systems, hence the support for core .NET Framework functionality, such as the common language runtime (CLR).

• Time-to-market   Interoperation translates into direct savings of time and materials. Result: faster time-to-market. The deeper and tighter the integration and interoperation of systems, the faster and easier they will be to deliver.

• Ease of deployment, administration, and management   The Windows Server 2003 Release 2 (R2) platform fully supports SQL Server 2005 and makes it easier to deploy and administer huge SQL Server systems. The more complex your system becomes, the more important it is to be able to easily deploy and manage it. While there is a steep learning curve in Windows Server 2003 R2, you can drastically ease your SQL Server 2005 administrative burden converting to the platform.

• Full exploitation of Windows Server 2003 scalability   Windows Server 2003 comes jammed with technologies and services to meet the availability, service level, and change control demands of the most demanding multitiered, distributed applications.