What is SQL Server?

With an increasing dependency on digital data, many users prefer to maintain the track of useful data on database systems. One of the most commonly used database is SQL Server, which serves as a repository for millions of users. It is basically a Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) that stores user’s data in a relational structure. All the data entered gets stored in its database, which can be further retrieved anytime. It maintains to store data in a relational manner, I.e., in the form of rows and columns. Its underlying architecture and consistency checks makes it reliable for use among the users.

SQL Server maintain a special file known as .SQL file, which contains database queries for the specific database. So, it can be said that each database is associated with .SQL file extension that contains the queries to insert, update, delete or alter the database components. These database files can also be shared among the users to share code or query for database components. So, these .SQL files can be used to rebuild the entire database using embedded SQL statements.

Data Storage & Maintenance

SQL Server lets the users create any number of databases using valid credentials. Thus, various entries get stored into the database at a specific location. SQL Server basically generates three kinds of files to keep track of data:

  1. MDF Files- These are the primary data files (or Master database files) used to store data in the form of tables.
  2. NDF Files- These are the secondary data files that can be accessed to store additional data across more than one file.
  3. LDF Files- These are the log files, which keep track of all the operations performed on the database and its associated files.

How SQL Server Maintains Data?

The database system provides certain programming tools and structures to customize the storage of data. Some of the major actions that can be performed using the application includes:

Database Creation

Any number of databases with unique name can be created in the SQL Server to maintain variety of data.

Table Creation

The users can create different tables containing rows and columns to store data in a relational and consistent manner. The tables may contain any number of entries.

Database Objects

Along with tables, different kinds of database objects can also be created to improve the functionality of the specific database. One can choose to create different database objects such as:

Procedures: It is a set of statements that perform specific task or operations on the database. These procedures can be called anywhere in the script to perform the specific operation.

Views: Views indicate the virtual tables that can be used to provide restricted access to database objects or its associated data.

Triggers: Triggers are the action driven events, which are executed in response to certain action on the database.

Scheduled Backup Data

To preserve data, the server provides a feature to backup the data from database on scheduled basis. Once the scheduled is set, the server automatically create the backup for database.

Maintain Access

To maintain the security and privacy of database, SQL Server comes with role access, which customizes the access of users. The admin has complete rights to DENY, GRANT, REVOKE access permission to other SQL users.

Access SQL Server using SQL

SQL (Structured Query Language) is the standard language, which is used to interact with SQL Server. Thus, all the functionality of SQL Server can be performed using SQL queries.SQL makes the use of certain commands such as: CREATE, INSERT, UPDATE, ALTER, DELETE, DROP etc to manipulate the database.

SQL Server supports variety of data types to store different kinds of data such as:

String Data Types

The strings can be stored in variety of data types such as:

  • char(n), varchar(n), nvarchar
  • text, ntext
  • varbinary, binary, image

Number Data Types

The numeric values can be stored as:

  • int, tinyint, smallint, bit
  • float, real, money

Date Type data

Depending on the structure, dates can be stored as:

  • datetime
  • datetime2
  • date, time, timestamps, datetimeoffset

Miscellaneous Data Types

To support wide data range, certain other data types are supported such as:

  • SQL_variant
  • XML
  • cursor
  • uniqueidentifier

All the SQL statements used to create or manipulate the components get saved in .SQL file format. Thus, reading the .SQL file carefully can let the user know about various data types used for different objects.

Conclusion

No doubt SQL Server is the most reliable utility to store data and its attributes. Users can rely on its management to maintain record of information in a consistent manner. Moreover, all the transactions can also be tracked using its advance feature. However, in many cases SQL Server gets corrupted due to reasons like inconsistency in disk structure, dirty IO operations etc which corrupt the data files. Once repaired efficiently, it can be used to access data without any issues.