SQL Server 2000 Features

• Internet standards support
  Integrate existing systems without programming through comprehensive support for W3C standards including XML, Xpath, XSL and HTTP.
• XML Views
  View and access relational data using XML techniques by easily mapping XML elements and attributes to relational schema.
• URL and HTTP access
  Flexibly access data from the Web via a URL. Use Structured Query Language (SQL), XML templates or XPath in URLs for querying.
• SELECT...FOR XML
  Return XML from SQL queries and easily control the shape of the returned XML tree with three formatting options.
• OpenXML
  Access, manipulate and update XML documents as if they were tables using T-SQL and stored procedures.
• XML Updategrams -- available through download after release
  Use XML to selectively insert, update and delete table data from anywhere, even through firewalls.
• XML bulk load -- available through download after release
  Seamlessly transmit, transform and load data from any source into SQL Server 2000 relational tables.
• Integrated Data Mining
  Analyze collected relational and OLAP data including clickstreams and purchase histories to recognize trends and make predictions. Close the loop by delivering personalized content.
• HTTP access to cubes
  Make cubes available through firewalls for Web-based analysis applications using an HTTP listener built into SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition.
• Multi-instance support
  Run reliably in hosted scenarios with separate database instances per customer or application.
• Installation disk imaging
  Create standard or default databases for server farms easily and rapidly from any machine on the network with built-in cloning technology.
• Distributed Partitioned Views
  Achieve software scale out on the data tier by partitioning workload across servers. Add additional servers for greater scalability.
• Log Shipping
  Automatically keep databases in synch for warm standby on multiple backup servers to share load--no matter how physically far apart.
• Parallel index creation
  Take full advantage SMP hardware to speed up index creation, easing the load on frequently updated systems.
• Parallel scan
  Accelerate scans on multi-processor systems to improve overall database performance.
• Failover cluster management
  Reinstall or rebuild any node in a failover cluster without impacting other nodes. Easily configure failover for replication and Distributed Partitioned Views.
• 32 CPU SMP system support -- Requires Windows 2000 DataCenter Server
  Scale-up SQL Server 2000 databases to SMP systems with as many as 32 processors.
• 64 GB RAM support -- requires Windows 2000 Data Center Server
  Handle the largest data sets and transactional loads with up to 64 GB of RAM for SQL Server 2000.
• VI SAN support
  Speed communications between servers with SQL Server 2000 support for direct communication with System Area Network (SAN) devices.
• Indexed views
  Create indexes on views to improve performance of existing queries without recoding. Speed up analysis and reporting that rely on complex views.
• ROLAP dimension storage
  Perform analyses on huge dimensions (10M+ members) by storing such dimensions relationally.
• Distributed Partition Cubes
  Easily use the Partition Wizard to separate one logical cube into separate physical partitions with complete transparency for flexible data storage and improved query performance.
• Online index reorganization
  Keep the server up and running while reorganizing indexes to improve performance.
• Differential backup
  Run backups quickly and with low server impact by only backing up changed pages.
• Server-less snapshot backup5
  Backup data seamlessly with effectively no impact on the database server. Restore quickly or create warm standby servers. Requires third party virtual device interface (VDI) application and enterprise storage system supporting split mirror or copy-on-write operations.
• MDX Builder
  Use drag-and-drop to quickly generate Multidimensional Expressions. Easily add functions, arithmetic operators and more.
• OLAP Actions
  Allow analysis results to kick off processes in Web and business applications automatically.
• Virtual Cube Editor
  Browse, examine and edit virtual cubes graphically.
• Column level collations
  Store objects that have different collations in the same database. Collations can be specified at the database level or at the column level.
• New data types
  Store and reference data flexibly with bigint, sql_variant and table data types.
• Active Directory integration -- Active Directory is a feature of Windows 2000
  Manage databases centrally alongside other enterprise resources. View and search for servers, replication publications, cubes and more.
• Self-management and tuning
  Rest easy as SQL Server 2000 uses dynamic algorithms to automatically adapt to constantly changing runtime environments.
• Copy Database Wizard
  Move and copy databases and objects between servers easily. Schedule migrations through integration with DTS.
• SQL Query Analyzer
  Debug stored procedures. Set breakpoints, define watches, view variables and step through code. Trace executing code on server or client. Easily write T-SQL based on templates.
• Indexes on computed columns
  Define indexes on column types even when the data in the column is computed from other columns
• Cascading referential integrity constraints
  Control how changes propagate through tables when keys are updated.
• INSTEAD OF and AFTER triggers
  Execute code flexibly by specifying what happens in lieu of an operation or after it.
• User-defined functions
  Achieve code reuse by creating T-SQL functions. Incorporate routinely used logic to simplify development.