In this article, Brian Myers demonstrates how to build a database structure auditing solution with DDL triggers. This allows DBAs and developers to keep track of all changes to the structure of a database including when a table is added or when a column is changed, and is most useful during development and testing. Instead of developers or DBAs keeping a log of database changes, DDL triggers, new to SQL Server 2005, can be used to automatically collect the necessary information. This article includes SQL Server 2005 scripts to create a database to hold the audit information as well as scripts to create the DDL triggers. After reading this article you will be able to deploy a database structure auditing solution within SQL Server 2005.

Since its invention in 1918, Soundex has become the de facto standard for phonetic searching. Microsoft SQL Server even has built-in support for phonetic matching via the SOUNDEX() and DIFFERENCE() functions. It comes as no surprise that modern users take advantage of Soundex functionality in a wide variety of applications including genealogy, customer relationship management, law enforcement and the growing field of anti-terrorism. In this article, Michael Coles demonstrates how to take advantage of Soundex in your own applications. He'll introduce you to the Microsoft-supplied Soundex function, discuss the differences between this and the NARA standard, and then work through a SQLCLR UDF that implements the NARA standard, thus allowing you to perform NARA-compliant queries directly from SQL Server 2005. The article also demonstrates how to use this feature from a web service or web application.

In this article Cristian Lefter will provide a closer look at SQL Server 2005 Dynamic Management Views (DMVs). The article takes a brief tour of some of the categories of DMV that are available, showing you the kind of information you can get fro them, and how to access them both through SQL queries and through summary reports. Then Cristian works through several samples that show how you can use DMVs to identify possible bottlenecks in your MS SQL Server 2005 server.

In this article Klaus Aschenbrenner will show you how you can use a combination of managed stored procedures, managed triggers and a Service Broker to develop an asynchronous, scalable database solution that can process data asynchronously allowing the database to be available for mission critical applications.

This is the first of three articles in which Robin Dewson surveys SQL Server 2005, covering the changes and new features that have been added since SQL Server 2000. This article gives an overview of the new installation procedures as well as some of the tools that replace those found in previous versions of SQL Server. Additionally, it takes a look at the changes with Snapshot Isolation and how this can help batch processing, and it also covers the new Database Tuning Advisor.

This article is the second in a series that introduces the changes and improvements to SQL Server 2005, focusing on what drives SQL Server and T-SQL. As far as coding is concerned, although the inclusion of .NET has attracted the greatest publicity, there have been many T-SQL changes as well. Data joining, data pivoting, and exception handling have all gained new functionality, and the new capability of ranking rows of data with built-in functionality is a great asset for running a search engine. Finally, to cater for the new XML data type, support for XQuery has been introduced, and there are improvements in FOR XML. This article will review these changes with code snippets and show you how to take advantage of the new features.

In the final article of the series introducing SQL Server 2005 Robin Dewson examines the new support for .NET and the ability to write stored procedures and other items using managed code. The article also covers a couple of other related topics, including new ADO.NET notification support, multiple active results sets (MARS) and SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS).

Allan Hirt, author of Microsoft SQL Server 2005 High Availability, to be published by Apress in late spring 2007, can be heard discussing high availability on .NET Rocks!

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