SQL Server is a software application designed to manage databases, it stores and retrieves data as requested by otherhosted-applications-1 applications. When software developers are writing new business applications that store information in a database they will very often use SQL Server’s functionality to look after the databases rather than reinventing the wheel writing their own code to do the same thing. This makes writing database applications easier and quicker (and therefore cheaper) as well as making them more reliable, scalable and secure.

A database in SQL Server is made up of a collection of tables that stores a specific set of structured data. A table contains a collection of rows, also referred to as records or tuples, and columns, also referred to as attributes. Each column in the table is designed to store a certain type of information, for example, dates, names, dollar amounts, and numbers.

A computer can have one or more than one instance of SQL Server installed. Each instance of SQL Server can contain one or many databases. Within a database, there are one or many object ownership groups called schemas. Within each schema there are database objects such as tables, views, and stored procedures. Some objects such as certificates and asymmetric keys are contained within the database, but are not contained within a schema.