Technologies evolve over time based on insights and feedback during the course of its lifecycle. Most of the time, the biggest issue is building adaptive technology that is simple to use and provides business advantage. This is the same case in the matter of database technology with the last few years has been several revolutions with the introduction of new services such as virtualization, cloud, big data etc. Microsoft (MS) is one such company which is very active in building adaptive database platforms over the years, one of which is the SQLServer. The MS SQLServer over the years has undergone significant changes making it one of the toughest and simplest database technologies to experiment with. The most recent version of MS SQLServer is a complete package in itself offering all the buzz word capabilities. Among the feature offerings provided by SQL Server 2012 is a simple but important concept introduced known as the contained database. Even though the contained database was brought in to cater to the needs of one section of database users (database administrator or database developers), the impact or advantage is worth it. As database administrator or developer we often come across the following questions:
- Is there a way to avoid loss of information during database movement?
- Is there a way to avoid checking for orphan users when we do a DB restoration and end up fixing the same one by one when considering the time taken for the task?
- Is there a way to move all the jobs related to a DB (agent job information) along with the database movement a dependencies can cause havoc?.
MS SQLServer 2012 is a contained Database that answers or caters to all the above requirements. So, what is a contained database? Any database which is instance independent with no external dependencies and a self-contained mechanism of authenticating users is referred to as a contained DB. The advantage of having such a database is that they can be moved around between server setups and start working instantly without the need of any additional configuration since they do not have any external dependencies. This is one such example which showcases the ability of database technologies to evolve overtime and fulfill user needs again and again. Explore the realistic world of database technology capabilities with Happiest Minds.
Raj is a former Happiest Mind and this content was created and published during his tenure.
