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Yukon Tempts Database Developers
Long-awaited SQL Server 2005 offers Visual Studio 2005 developers more than just CLR integration.
by Roger Jennings

Tech•Ed, June 7, 2005

If SQL Server 2005 releases to manufacturing in the second half of 2005, this latest upgrade to Microsoft's flagship client/server database management system will have been more than five years in the making. According to Kimberly Tripp's DAT250 "SQL Server 2005: Bridging the Gap between Development and Administration" Tech•Ed breakout session, the SQL Server team's headcount has grown from about 400 for 1998's SQL Server 7.0 release to almost 1,000 for SQL Server 2005 and its belated WinFS project.

This article describes what VS database developers can expect from Microsoft's investment of 4,000+ person-years in SQL Server 2005. (4,000+ person-years assumes that the SQL Server 2000 team numbered 700 at release and grew at a constant 60-person/year increment to 1,000 over the past five years.) To learn what benefits database administrators (DBAs) can expect from SQL Server 2005, check out the Database Administration track's 23 breakout sections and "Admin Benefits of SQL Server 2005" by Danielle Ruest and Nelson Ruest.

It's a good bet that every Windows database front-end developer is at least aware of SQL Server 2005's most important new features and most VS 2002/2003 users have at least some hands-on SQL Server Project coding experience with VS 2005 beta and Community Technical Preview (CTP) versions. Paul Flessner provided an early view of Yukon during his October 21, 2001 presentation at the Professional Developer's Conference (see Resources). Flessner described Yukon's native HTTP Web services, XML data type, and XQuery processor, and he demonstrated C# stored procedure code hosted by the database engine.