What is Database? What is SQL?

What is Database? What is SQL?

SQL stands for structured query language. SQL Server is a relational database management system (RDBMS) developed by Microsoft. By using SQL Server we can store and retrieve data from one place called database and use that data whenever it required in other programming applications. SQL also same as other relational database management systems like Sybase, mysql, pl/sql etc

Uses of SQL Server

• It will allow us to access data in database and perform different operations on data
• We can create databases, tables and stored procedures to access data in required format
• We can do insert, update, delete, select etc… to communicate with data stored in databases.
• We can create views, functions, indexes, keys etc… in database to get data in efficient way
• In SQL we can create roles and user level permissions to access data in databases
• We can access SQL database data from other languages using SQL modules, libraries

History of SQL Server

The journey of SQL started from 1989, originally code base of SQL sold by Sybase SQL Server to Microsoft. They launched this product as competitor for IBM, Oracle, etc. Overall Microsoft has launched more than 14 versions, check following table for more information.

      Version    Release Name                                               Year

       1.0          SQL Server 1.0                                              1989

       1.1          SQL Server 1.1                                              1991

       4.21        SQL Server 4.21                                            1993

       6.0          SQL Server 6.0                                              1995

       6.5          SQL Server 6.5                                              1996

       7.0          SQL Server 7.0                                              1998

       8.0          SQL Server 2000                                           2000

       8.0          SQL Server 2000 (64 Bit Version)                2003

       9.0          SQL Server 2005                                           2005

       10.0        SQL Server 2008                                           2008

       10.25     Azure SQL DB                                               2010

       10.50     SQL Server 2008 R2                                      2010

       11.0       SQL Server 2012                                            2012

       12.0        SQL Server 2014                                           2014

       13.0        SQL Server 2016                                           2016

       14.0        SQL Server 2017                                           2017