You may be thinking of upgrading your database soon and have some questions on what SQL Server is.
SQL Server is:
– A relational database management system
– Stores data in tables that can be linked to other tables with keys
– Provides a way for applications to read and write data locally or over a network
– Tools that not only manage data but it also include report writing, data import export, and analysis tools. These are SSRS, SSIS, and SSAS respectively
– Operates using SQL And T-SQL languages
SQL Server also comes in different editions as well:
| Features | Enterprise | Business Intelligence | Standard | Express1 |
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| Maximum number of cores | OS Max | 16 cores-DBOS Max-AS&RS2 | 16 cores | 4 cores |
| Maximum memory utilized per instance | OS Max | 128 GB | 128 GB | 1 GB |
| Maximum size | 524 PB | 524 PB | 524 PB | 10 GB |
| Programmability (T-SQL, data types, FileTable) | 
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| SQL Server Management Studio |
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| Policy-based management |
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| Basic OLTP |
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| Basic security (Separation of duties, basic auditing) |
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| Basic high availability3 |
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| Built-in data connectors |
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| Basic data integration (SSIS, designer transforms) |
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| Basic reporting4 |
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| Basic corporate BI (Analytics, multidimensional semantic model, data mining) |
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| Self-service business intelligence (Alerting, Power View, Power Pivot for SharePoint Server) |
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| Advanced corporate BI (Tabular BI semantic model, advanced analytics and reporting, in-memory analytics engine, advanced data mining) |
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| Enterprise data management (Data Quality Services, Master Data Services) |
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| Advanced data integration (Fuzzy grouping and lookup, change data capture) |
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| Advanced security (SQL Server audit, transparent data encryption) |
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| Data warehousing (In-memory columnstore, compression, partitioning) |
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| Advanced high availability (AlwaysOn, multiple, active secondaries; multi-site, geo-clustering) |
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| Advanced transaction processing (In-memory OLTP) |
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Source: MSDN
