In this chapter, you will first learn the importance of implementing and enforcing a naming standard. Using a robust RDBMS such as SQL Server provides administrators and developers with the ability to ensure that data is stored in a central location, and they can enforce naming standards and additional control that almost guarantee consistent and credible data across the organization. These three key components are not typically available in something like an Excel spreadsheet. Moreover, they provide governance on how the data is structured, organized, and delivered. Whether you are working with SQL Server or a similar system, most RDBMSs offer a way to centrally maintain and monitor access and availability to the data. The previously described downsides alone provide sufficient justification for using an RDBMS. Finally, by storing data in Excel, users are not able to realize the RDBMS benefits of multiuser concurrency and data integrity, which are the foundation of most database management systems. In addition, the process to populate those spreadsheets and workbooks is often manual, and only one person understands how it works. If the spreadsheets and workbooks are not secured and backed up regularly, the information stored in them is vulnerable to a failure or catastrophe. The downside of this approach is that those Excel spreadsheets and workbooks become data silos that are typically stored on users’ machines. Once the data is in Excel, the end user may create a series of spreadsheets and workbooks that together provide a very robust reporting tool containing answers to many organizational questions. Many people extract data or request data from an RDBMS and import that data into Excel. For example, the most widely used database is a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. While this book’s primary focus is SQL Server, it should be noted that databases come in many shapes and forms. Without a relational database management system (RDBMS) to store and maintain that data, the application would likely not exist. The power in any application is the data that it accepts and stores. Tables are the foundation of all objects, and without them a database is useless. Just as the database is the primary container of all objects on an instance of Microsoft SQL Server, the table is the primary container of all data on a SQL Server instance. Understand the different SQL Server data types.After completing this chapter, you will be able to
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